Premier Introduces Rapid Improvement Programs to Help Hospitals Tap Best Practices of Top-Flight Peers.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Performance Improvement Tools Include Resource-Packed Web Portal, Online Experts; Products Incorporate Lessons Learned From CMS/Premier Pay-for-Performance Pilot

Premier Inc. today introduced a set of powerful new healthcare quality improvement tools, Rapid Improvement Programs, that will help hospitals quickly identify best practices developed by peer institutions and use them to achieve rapid, meaningful gains in clinical quality and operational efficiency.

The products, which include a resource-packed Web portal and access to online communities of experts, allow all hospitals the opportunity to improve care, reduce errors, save lives and lower costs by learning from the healthcare industry's top performers.

"We all know that the best hospitals are those that have figured out how to 'get it right' consistently - the challenge is transferring that knowledge and practical know-how to those that aspire to be the best," said Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president and general manager of Premier Healthcare Informatics. "Premier's Rapid Improvement Programs revolutionize knowledge transfer by providing access to best practices and collaboration with experts quickly and inexpensively - right from the user's desktop."

The Rapid Improvement Programs grew out of key lessons learned by Premier through its involvement in the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration, a federal quality improvement initiative co-sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Premier. In working closely with nearly 300 participating hospitals and documenting the best practices of top performers, Premier developed methods to share vital information about these best practices quickly and inexpensively to help all participants boost their quality scores.

Premier's new Rapid Improvement Programs portal contains searchable data that allows any hospital to find out what similarly equipped peer institutions of similar size have done to improve clinical care and patient outcomes for dozens of clinical conditions. These include five common conditions being tracked in the HQID, as well as others for which Premier already has data in its Perspective(TM) database, the largest clinical comparative database in the nation.

In addition, users can tap into Premier's more than 30 years of experience in healthcare operational efficiency via departmental performance improvement methodologies and access to Premier's extensive library of operational best practices and implemented results.

Resources available on the portal include proven methodologies, "how-to" change packets, forms, templates, order sets, breaking news alerts, case studies, success stories and clinical research. In addition, the portal offers expert collaboration and Rapid Improvement Teams to help users keep hospital quality moving forward once it is launched.

With the click of a mouse, a user can access nearly 100 "Communities of Interest," including 22 clinical communities focused on common clinical conditions such as acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and heart failure, as well as topics such as physician engagement and patient safety; 15 operational and financial communities such as labor management and patient throughput; and 53 communities focused on the operations of specific departments within hospitals such as the cardiac catheterization lab and emergency department. These communities of experts are on call and will respond quickly to any questions.

"We have found the Rapid Improvement Portal invaluable," said Leigh Miller, RN, MS, director of clinical outcomes for AnMed Health in Anderson, S.C. "The ability to easily download and edit proven forms, tools and protocols has saved us from having to recreate the wheel."

Users will find that many best practices used by top-performing hospitals do not involve major investments of time or resources. Even simple fixes - such as consistently prescribing aspirin when discharging AMI patients - can yield improvements in readmission rates and other patient outcomes, Alexander said.

"As the recognized leader in helping hospitals improve patient outcomes while at the same time lowering costs, Premier understands that many variables impact clinical quality and operational efficiency," Alexander said. "For hospital executives and management, Rapid Improvement is a window into the culture and leadership that enables top-performing hospitals to achieve excellent results. For physicians and staff, this resource-rich tool offers a wealth of proven practices, policies and procedures that will allow them to generate significant quality and financial improvements in a short time."

For more information on Premier's Rapid Improvement Programs, visit http://www.premierinc.com/all/informatics/rapid-improvement-programs/ index.jsp.

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About Premier Healthcare Informatics

Premier Healthcare Informatics offers performance measurement, benchmarking and reporting products and related advisory services and methodologies to support health systems' and hospitals' quality improvement efforts. Among its products and services, Premier Healthcare Informatics offers the Advisor Suite(TM) of clinical and operational performance measurement and reporting solutions; best practice methodologies to directly implement quality improvement programs; project-specific guidance; and on-site expertise to support improvement of clinical outcomes and efficiency of care. Areas of expertise include JCAHO and CMS performance measurement, clinical and operational benchmarking, labor management programs, balanced scorecards, patient satisfaction, evidence-based research, and patient safety. Premier Healthcare Informatics is part of Premier Inc., a strategic healthcare alliance that provides an array of performance solutions to hospitals and other providers. For more information about Premier Healthcare Informatics, visit www.premierinc.com/informatics or call 800.805.4608.