Premier Teleconference to Focus on Electronic Incident Reporting of Adverse Events in Hospitals

Business Wire, April 10, 2006

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Premier Inc. healthcare alliance will host a national teleconference April 12 on electronic incident reporting of adverse events in hospitals.

"The Impact of Adverse Events: Results from Tufts-New England Medical Center study using Electronic Incident Reporting," will take place on Wednesday, April 12, from 2-3 p.m. ET. Registration for the free teleconference is online at www.premierinc.com/advisorlive.> Industry experts Deeb Salem, M.D., physician-in-chief at Tufts-New England Medical Center and chairman of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Sanjaya Kumar, M.D., M.Sc., M.P.H., president and chief medical officer at Quantros, will address important quality improvement and supply chain topics, including:

--Description of the rate and types of events reported in acute-care hospitals using an electronic reporting system as reviewed in the speakers' article "Voluntary Electronic Reporting of Medical Errors and Adverse Events: An Analysis of 92,547 Reports from 26 Acute Care Hospitals" in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

--Critical issues for the future of incident reporting, including public reporting.

--The use of online incident reporting as a pay-for-performance measure.

--Premier's Safety Advisor(TM) incident reporting system.

Premier's 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 Speakers

Deeb N. Salem, MD is chairman of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and physician-in-chief at the Tufts-New England Medical Center Hospital, the principle teaching hospital of Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Salem has had a distinguished career as an academic cardiologist. In 1987, he was appointed professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He served as chief of Cardiology at the New England Medical Center from 1987 to 1995. In January of 1999, Dr. Salem was appointed the Sheldon M. Wolff Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. His academic accomplishments include over 130 scientific publications. He is recognized as a national expert in coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure. Dr. Salem, who received his BA and MD from Boston University in 1968, is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians.

Dr. Sanjaya Kumar is president and chief medical officer at Quantros, Inc. Under his leadership, Quantros provides exemplary data management tools for safety and risk management, regulatory reporting and accreditation and compliance self-monitoring. Prior to joining Quantros, Dr. Kumar was the clinical project specialist for the Louisiana Health Care Review (QIO). He also was a clinical informatics officer for IBM. Before entering the healthcare technology business, Dr. Kumar was a practicing physician specializing in internal medicine and cardiology. Dr. Kumar received his medical degree from the University of Benin with post-graduate clinical training in the UK and at the University of Massachusetts. He earned a master of science in health planning and financing from the London School of Economics and Political Science and master of public health in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Massachusetts.

About Premier Inc. and Healthcare Informatics

Premier Inc., is a strategic healthcare alliance that provides an array of performance solutions to hospitals and other providers. Premier's Healthcare Informatics unit 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. For more information about Premier Healthcare Informatics, visit www.premierinc.com/informatics or call 800.805.4608.