CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(Business Wire)--
Leaders from the Premier healthcare alliance will speak around the country in
November and December, sharing insights regarding Premier`s QUEST®: High
Performing Hospitals program, Premier`s Performance Improvement (PI) Portal and
improving quality while safely reducing costs.
Premier`s President and CEO Susan DeVore and Richard Bankowitz, Premier chief
medical officer, will present at the 2009 Institute for Healthcare Improvement
(IHI) Conference on December 8 in Orlando, Fla. They will discuss Premier`s
QUEST program, a three-year national collaborative of approximately 200
hospitals focused on accelerating improvement across important dimensions of
hospital performance (quality, cost, outcomes, harm and satisfaction).
Joining Premier in this presentation will be executives from two QUEST charter
member organizations: Charleston Area Medical Center of Charleston, W.Va., and
Alegent Health Bergan Mercy Medical Center of Omaha, Neb. They will discuss how
they have consistently placed among the top performers in the project through
its first two years.
Approximately 200hospitals representing 31 states are now participating in this
project, which is currently linking the two main goals of health reform
proposals being considered by Congress: quality improvement and cost reduction.
Results from the first year of the project released on October 21 show that the
original 157 QUEST hospitals have saved an estimated total of 8,043 lives and
$577 million in one year. Of the approximately 2.3 million patients treated
annually in these hospitals, 24,818 additional patients received treatments that
met the highest quality patient care standards when compared to baseline
performance at the outset of the project.
According to a Premier analysis of these Year 1 results, if non-participating
hospitals were able to achieve the improvements found among the QUEST
participants, they could save an estimated additional 52,760 lives.
Additionally, Dave Edwards, Premier vice president of Contract Uptake and
Supplier Relations will also discuss QUEST at the Association of National
Account Executives O.R. Reverse Tradeshow and Conference on November 11 in Las
Vegas.
On November 17, Leslie Schultz, senior director of Informatics, will speak at
Information Today`s KMWorld 2009 meeting in San Jose, Calif. Schultz will
discuss Premier`s PI Portal during an Enterprise 2.0 session. Schultz and Lisa
Leonard, vice president and co-founder of Street Smarts, the technology platform
supporting the PI Portal, will discuss how Premier achieves its mission "to
analyze and share knowledge nationwide to improve the health of communities"
through use of the PI Portal. A key enabler for knowledge transfer and
asynchronous collaboration/networking, the PI Portal supports QUEST, the United
Kingdom National Health Service North West Advancing Quality Project and the
South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust, among other programs and initiatives.
About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
The Premier healthcare alliance is more than 2,200 U.S. hospitals and
63,000-plus other healthcare sites working together to improve healthcare
quality and affordability. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, 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 works 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 offices in San Diego, Philadelphia and
Washington. Follow Premier on Twitter.
Premier Inc.
Alven Weil, 704-733-5797
Copyright Business Wire 2009
