Healthcare Industry News: CMS
News Release - September 13, 2006
Premier Inc. Signs Agreement
Premier's Operations Advisor Labor Management Solution to Address Budgeting Improvement Efforts, Link Quality to ProductivityCHARLOTTE, N.C.--(HSMN NewsFeed)--Sept. 13, 2006--Texas Health Resources (THR), one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit healthcare delivery systems in the United States, has signed an agreement with the Premier Inc. healthcare alliance to use Premier's Operations Advisor comparative database and services. As an existing client, THR currently uses Premier's Clinical Advisor in its hospitals for quality measurement and benchmarking.
Premier's Operations Advisor is a total labor management solution that offers productivity monitoring, assessment and comparative data, allowing hospitals to compare operational performance against peers and national benchmarks. Accessing the Perspective(TM) database, hospitals can measure performance against top performers at the corporate, facility and department cost center levels. Operations Advisor is the only comparative data product that fully integrates a productivity measurement system with quarterly benchmarking, allowing healthcare professionals to tie improvement efforts with the budgeting process.
"Texas Health Resources has been a valued Premier member for some time, and we're thrilled to have the opportunity to expand this relationship," said Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president and general manager for Premier Healthcare Informatics. "THR is widely acknowledged as a leading healthcare system, and we look forward to assisting in accelerating the achievement of its labor productivity and general quality goals."
Approximately 250 hospitals including THR currently take part in Premier's groundbreaking pay for performance Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). As part of the project, the hospitals submit clinical quality data to Premier through the Perspective data warehouse. CMS then uses the data to identify and reward top performers in five clinical areas.
In year one of the demonstration, CMS awarded $8.85 million in incentives to the top-performing hospitals in the project, and approximately 235 acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) patients were saved as a result of quality improvements in that related focus area alone.
In addition, Premier recently released an analysis partially based on the HQID project, stating that, if all pneumonia and heart bypass patients nationally had received most of a set of basic, widely accepted care measures in 2004, costs would have been as much as $1 billion lower. Other projected outcomes associated with this improved process delivery include 3,000 fewer deaths, 6,000 fewer complications, 6,000 fewer readmissions and 500,000 fewer days in the hospital.
About Texas Health Resources
Texas Health Resources is one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit health care delivery systems in the United States. The 13-hospital system is the largest in North Texas in terms of patients served and includes Harris Methodist Hospitals, Arlington Memorial Hospital and Presbyterian Healthcare System. For more information about Texas Health Resources, visit www.texashealth.org.
About Premier Inc.
A healthcare alliance entirely owned by more than 200 of the nation's leading not-for-profit hospitals and healthcare systems, Premier Inc. helps hospitals accelerate both clinical and financial performance. Premier's shareholders operate or are affiliated with 1,500 hospitals and more than 42,000 other healthcare sites. Premier's members and clients benefit from group purchasing and supply chain services, clinical and operational performance measurement, benchmarking and insurance programs. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, Premier has offices in Charlotte, NC, and Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.
Source: Premier Purchasing
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