Top Performer in CMS/Premier P4P Project Featured in Teleconference.

Cleveland Regional Medical Center Dramatically Improves Quality of Heart Failure, Heart Attack, and Hip and Knee Patient Care

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Premier Inc. healthcare alliance will host a national teleconference on Wednesday, October 25, to share insights from a hospital that improved dramatically through participation in a national pay-for-performance project.

The teleconference, featuring Cleveland Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Shelby, NC, takes place from 2-3 p.m. EST. Titled "Using Quality Measures to Improve Performance: A Case Study,eIN the teleconference features Liz Popwell, C.H.E., vice president of Systems Management and safety officer at CRMC.

Popwell will share how CRMC has shown significant improvements in quality of care as a part of PremiereIUs pay-for-performance Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) with the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS).

CRMC, part of the Carolinas HealthCare System, has risen from lower performance deciles to top deciles in the HQID project in congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), and hip and knee core measures. Examples of the improvements include:

* Congestive heart failure readmission rate decreased 37 percent;

* Acute myocardial infarction mortality decreased 25 percent;

* Knee infections reduced by 70 percent; and

* Hip infections reduced by 36 percent.

Popwell will also share how CRMC uses Premier's Quality Measures Reporter (QMR) to drive performance improvement. A single-source solution to submit and analyze data required for national and state regulatory compliance and insurance plan initiatives, QMR also allows hospitals to track performance against national benchmarks, identify performance opportunities, and increase clinical quality and efficiency.

The first national project of its kind, HQID is designed to determine if economic incentives to hospitals are effective at improving the quality of inpatient care by exploring ways to define quality measures and reward top-performing hospitals based on the quality of care they provide to patients.

In year one of the demonstration, CMS awarded $8.85 million in incentives to the top-performing hospitals in the project. In addition, CMS-validated data from the first year of the HQID demonstrates a significant improvement in the quality of care across five clinical focus areas as measured by 33 nationally standardized and widely accepted quality indicators from more than 250 hospitals across the country. Results from the second year of the project will be released this fall.

PremiereIUs Advisor Live is a free monthly teleconference series providing information and discussion on important quality improvement and supply chain topics. To register, obtain additional information or access past audio recordings, visit www.premierinc.com/advisorlive or contact the Premier Solution Center at 800.805.4608.

About the speaker

Liz Popwell is vice president of Systems Management and safety officer at Cleveland Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Shelby, NC. She is responsible for Quality Management, Performance Improvement, Case Management, Infection Control, Accreditation Services, Patient Satisfaction Services and Patient Safety Improvement activities. Prior to joining CRMC, Popwell was director of Performance Improvement at Caromont Health in Gastonia, NC, and manager of Decision Support at Premier.

About Premier Inc.

With more than 1,700 hospitals and 42,000 other healthcare sites, Premier Inc. is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C. and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.