Leaders from the Premier healthcare alliance will speak around the country in September, sharing insights regarding patient quality and safety, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and pay-for-performance (P4P) based on Premier™s Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Premier President and CEO Richard Norling will discuss the improvement of healthcare in America, as well as the appropriate alignment between payors and providers, as a featured speaker at the MHA Hamilton Lecture on September 25 in Minneapolis, Minn.
Susan DeVore, Premier™s chief operating officer, will discuss patient quality and safety as a keynote speaker at the Charlotte Chamber Health Services Council meeting on September 10 in Charlotte, N.C.
Gina Pugliese, vice president of Premier™s Safety Institute, will be a keynote speaker at Premier alliance member Greater New York Hospital Association™s first annual Going Green conference on September 10 in New York. Pugliese will touch on environmentally preferable purchasing, energy conservation, mercury elimination and reuse of single use devices.
Kelli Price, vice president, Organizational Engagement and Performance Excellence, will discuss organizational values as a featured speaker at the Baldrige Regional Conference on September 16 in Denver, Colo. Price will also speak on September 18 at the Employee Involvement Association Annual Conference in Orlando regarding integrating Baldrige criteria into organizations. Premier received the Baldrige Award in 2006.
Premier™s Director of Clinical Performance Resources Leslie Schultz, Ph.D., will discuss the definition of quality as a participant in the Temple University Health System Quality Committee meeting on September 22 in Philadelphia.
Jay Hughes, program director, will discuss how to improve clinical performance as a featured speaker at the American College of Healthcare Executives Professionals conference September 18 in Cincinnati.
Jan McNeilly, Healthcare Informatics principal, will discuss P4P at the Association of Otolaryngology Administrators Annual Meeting on September 17 in Chicago.
The HQID project is the first national project of its kind, designed to determine if economic incentives to hospitals are effective at improving the quality of inpatient care. As part of the project, more than 250 hospitals submit clinical quality data to Premier through the Perspective„ data warehouse. CMS, which approved a three-year extension of the project, then uses the data to identify and reward top performers in five clinical areas.
According to a January analysis of the HQID project, if all hospitals nationally were to achieve the three-year cost and mortality improvements found in HQID, they could save an estimated 70,000 lives per year and reduce hospital costs by more than $4.5 billion annually. In addition, NHS North West, England™s largest strategic health authority, is instituting the country™s first hospital-based pay-for-performance effort, called Advancing Quality, using the HQID project as a guideline.
Premier recently launched QUEST: High Performing Hospitals based on many of the same principles used in the HQID project. The goal of QUEST is to improve patient safety and quality in the nation™s hospitals while safely reducing healthcare costs. QUEST participating hospitals report data to Premier on a set of clearly defined performance measures encompassing aspects of quality, efficiency, safety and patient satisfaction. Premier analyzes the data, facilitates sharing of best practices, and provides incentives for top-performing hospitals.
For complete information about the HQID project and to view those hospitals ranking in the top 50 percent in each focus area, visit www.premierinc.com/quality-safety/tools-services/p4p/hqi/index.jsp.
About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Serving more than 2,000 U.S. hospitals and 53,000-plus other healthcare sites, the Premier healthcare alliance and its members are transforming healthcare together. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates one of the leading healthcare purchasing networks and the nation’s most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information. A subsidiary operates one of the nation’s largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups. A world leader in helping healthcare providers deliver dramatic improvements in care, Premier is working with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service North West and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.
Premier Inc.
Alven Weil, 704-733-5797