Baystate Health Extends and Expands Partnership With Premier, Inc. to Improve Health in Western Massachusetts

Long-Time Premier Member Health System Using Full Suite of Supply Chain and Performance Services to Provide High-Value Care


CHARLOTTE, N.C., April 9, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Baystate Health, a long-time member of Premier, Inc. (Nasdaq:PINC), has signed a seven-year contract to extend and expand the partnership to leverage additional performance improvement services that support the delivery of high-value care across its continuum.

The largest regional employer in western Massachusetts, Baystate Health has been a member of Premier and its predecessor companies for more than 30 years, using both its supply chain and performance services to drive cost and quality efficiencies, better outcomes and patient experiences, and advances in population health. One of the largest not-for-profit health systems in New England, Baystate Health includes an academic medical center, three community hospitals, outpatient and primary care facilities, and a health insurance company.

"As we evolve our efforts in keeping people healthy and treating illnesses, our Premier partnership is an essential element in providing care that is well-coordinated, effective and efficient," said Dr. Evan Benjamin, senior vice president for Quality and Population Health, and chief quality officer at Baystate Health. "We trust that continuing to innovate alongside Premier and its alliance members will help us further meet the health needs of our communities with quality and compassion."

Extending its contract for 3.5 years through June 2022, Baystate Health will continue to use Premier's group purchasing organization to reduce expenses through the aggregation of data, purchasing and best practices. Additionally, Baystate Health's academic, research and teaching hospital, Baystate Medical Center, will continue to access industry-leading SaaS (software-as-a-service) quality and safety analytics powered by Premier's performance improvement platform PremierConnect®. PremierConnect enables the sharing of insights and integrated data from alliance members to drive effective and efficient clinical, financial and operational decisions.

In expanding the partnership, Baystate Health will implement the following PremierConnect SaaS solutions to rapidly aggregate, cleanse and manage their data for actionable insights on care delivery and outcomes, all in one place.

  • PremierConnect Quality analytics to drive quality cycle management, improve resource utilization and eliminate unjustified variation across all current and future hospital sites.
  • PremierConnect Safety clinical surveillance analytics, across all current and future hospital sites, to monitor and protect patients from infections, harmful drug interactions and other adverse events.
  • PremierConnect Supply Chain cloud-based procurement analytics at every facility in its health system for comprehensive and real-time insights on supply chain activities across the continuum.
  • PremierConnect Operations labor and productivity benchmarking analytics for insights on labor performance across the continuum of care, including hospitals, physician practices and outpatient care facilities.

"Our goal is to ensure that people are consistently given the right care at the right time and from the right type of provider," said Dr. Benjamin. "Having access to nimble, interoperable data that creates actionable and predictive insights is extremely important. In expanding our relationship, Premier is supporting our transition to a streamlined care model that enables high-value care delivery across the continuum."

Baystate Health will also engage Premier advisory services to accelerate strategic performance improvements in continuum-wide care management, resource and service utilization, and workforce, supply chain and care quality optimization across its health system.

Additionally, Baystate Medical Center and the Baystate Health Technology Innovation Center, TechSpring, will continue to leverage the PremierConnect Enterprise cloud-based data warehouse and benefit from their membership in Premier's Data Alliance Collaborative. Baystate Health will also continue to share data and best practices with other alliance health systems as a member of Premier's QUEST® quality improvement and PACT™ population health collaboratives to set new standards in care delivery.

"Our unique collaboration with Baystate Health has enabled Premier to build, test and scale advances in healthcare across the alliance," said Susan DeVore, president and CEO, Premier. "Working together to solve common challenges, we are excited to continue developing these efforts that position Baystate Health as the choice provider offering complete care across its communities and finding the solutions that can ultimately create a healthier nation."

The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

About Baystate Health

Based in western Massachusetts, Baystate Health is a not-for-profit healthcare organization serving over 750,000 people throughout western New England. Services include an academic medical center, community hospitals, medical practices, homecare and hospice, and the insurer Health New England. Baystate Health has a total of 973 beds across five facilities: Baystate Medical Center, the western campus of Tufts University School of Medicine, in Springfield; Baystate Children's Hospital, also in Springfield; Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield; Baystate Mary Lane Hospital in Ware; and Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer. Visit www.baystatehealth.org.

About Premier, Inc.

Premier, Inc. (Nasdaq:PINC) is a leading healthcare improvement company, uniting an alliance of approximately 3,400 U.S. hospitals and 110,000 other providers to transform healthcare. With integrated data and analytics, collaboratives, supply chain solutions, and advisory and other services, Premier enables better care and outcomes at a lower cost. Premier, a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient, plays a critical role in the rapidly evolving healthcare industry, collaborating with members to co-develop long-term innovations that reinvent and improve the way care is delivered to patients nationwide. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier is passionate about transforming American healthcare. Please visit Premier's news and investor sites on www.premierinc.com; as well as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Foursquare and Premier's blog for more information about the company.

Forward-looking statements

Matters discussed in this release that are not statements of historical or current facts, such as Baystate Health's anticipated use of Premier's performance and supply chain services at expected levels, as discussed herein, are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Premier to be materially different from historical results or from any future results or projections expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward looking statements. In addition to statements that explicitly describe such risks and uncertainties, readers are urged to consider statements in the conditional or future tenses or that include terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "estimates," "intends," "anticipates" or "plans" to be uncertain and forward-looking. Forward-looking statements may include comments as to Premier's beliefs and expectations as to future events and trends affecting its business and are necessarily subject to uncertainties, many of which are outside Premier's control. More information on potential factors that could affect Premier's financial results is included from time to time in the "Forward Looking Statements," "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" sections of Premier's periodic and current filings with the SEC and available on Premier's website at investors.premierinc.com. Forward looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Premier undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise that occur after that date.

CONTACT: Morgan Bridges-Guthrie, Premier, Inc.; 704.816.4152;
Morgan_Bridges@PremierInc.com


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