News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
704.733.5797

Premier healthcare alliance experts to present at national events in February

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (February 3, 2010) – Leaders from the Premier healthcare alliance will speak around the country in February sharing insights regarding value-based purchasing (VBP), meaningful use, evidence-based care, labor management and improving quality while reducing costs.

On February 12, Premier President and CEO Susan DeVore will be a featured speaker as a part of an Institute for Healthcare Improvement event, "Pocketing the Dark Green Dollars: Successfully Making Improvements that Fall to the Bottom Line." She will discuss how hospitals have improved quality while safely reducing costs through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID)™ collaborative.

In addition, DeVore will speak about healthcare legislation on February 26 at the McColl School of Business alumni luncheon in Charlotte, N.C. Using examples from healthcare and other industries, DeVore will demonstrate how better quality can lead to lower costs and an improved healthcare system.

On February 5, Richard Bankowitz, MD, MBA, FACP, Premier's enterprise-wide chief medical officer, will discuss moving toward evidence-based care at the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) Large System CEO Meeting in Irving, Texas. Bankowitz will share how Premier's HQID and QUEST^®: High Performing Hospitals collaboratives have helped hospitals perform evidence-based care on a greater percentage of patients.

Stacey Brown, Premier vice president of communications and public relations, will discuss quality and safety improvements and VBP on February 25 among a panel of Premier alliance members at the American College of Healthcare Executives meeting in Charlotte, N.C. Panelists include: Valinda Rutledge, CEO of CaroMont Health System in Gastonia, N.C.; Jan Mathews, assistant vice president of quality management at CaroMont Health's Gaston Memorial Hospital; Liz Popwell, chief ancillary executive at Cleveland Regional Medical Center in Shelby, N.C.; and Janet Greiwe, vice president of systems management at Cleveland Regional Medical Center.

On February 16, Eric Kammer, Premier Informatics national director of operations, will discuss principles of labor management with the HFMA Florida chapter during HFMA's "Third Tuesday 'Free' Webinar" teleconference alongside Kathleen Osborne, vice president of staffing and operational strategies at Adventist Health System.

Premier Vice President of Integrated Product Management and Marketing Randy Thomas will discuss meaningful use and the importance of quality reporting during a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society 2010 ARRA Meaningful Use Workshop teleconference on February 28.

Leslie Schultz, PhD, CPHQ, senior director of QUEST and knowledge transfer, will speak about VBP and QUEST during a complimentary teleconference by LUMEDX on February 11.

QUEST is a voluntary, three-year project made up of approximately 200 hospitals across 31 states, including urban/rural, large/small and teaching/non-teaching facilities. Developed in partnership with Premier and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, QUEST is designed to springboard hospitals to new levels of performance and inform public policies with meaningful solutions, supported by real results. Hospitals are challenged to overcome the main factors that lead to deaths, errors and excessive costs, and measure themselves against one another to achieve top performance based on the following goals:

Save lives: Eliminate avoidable hospital mortalities;
Safely reduce the cost of care: Reduce the costs for each patient's hospitalization;
Deliver the most reliable and effective care: Ensure that patients receive every recommended evidence-based care measure;
Improve patient safety: Prevent incidents of harm in more than 30 categories, including healthcare-acquired infections and birth injuries;
Increase satisfaction: Improve the patient's overall care experience and loyalty to the care providing facility.

About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals and 80,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. https://premierinc.com. Stay connected with Premier on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.