Premier Healthcare Alliance, Adventist Health and Salem Hospital Recognize Rep. Darlene Hooley for Her Efforts to Improve Patient Care While Safely Reducing Costs

WASHINGTON -- The Premier healthcare alliance and two of its Oregon hospital members today honored U.S. Representative Darlene Hooley (D-OR) for her leadership in advancing legislation to include unique device identification (UDI) language in last year's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bill.

Congresswoman Hooley was presented with the "Healthcare Transformation Award" on Capitol Hill by Premier and Adventist Health. The award recognizes members of Congress for their efforts to improve healthcare quality while safely reducing costs.

"We salute Congresswoman Hooley for her efforts on this important patient safety issue," said Norman Gruber, president and CEO, Salem Hospital. "The value of a national UDI system in reducing medical errors and facilitating device recalls is critically important to today's healthcare system and our efforts to improve quality and patient safety."

Congresswoman Hooley played a significant role in enacting legislative language that required the FDA to create a UDI system for medical devices. Her efforts led to the "Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007" (H.R. 3580), which contained this important language and was approved in the House and the Senate and ultimately signed by the President.

"We are proud to honor Congresswoman Hooley with this award for her efforts around an issue that has great potential to positively impact our nation's healthcare system," said Larry Mitchel, director, Government Relations, Adventist Health, which owns Tillamook County General Hospital located in Tillamook, Oregon. "A national UDI standard will help us track medical devices like we can track any other product. This is the first important step towards broad use of common identifiers, which will lead to a more reliable, safe and efficient healthcare system."

"The UDI standard has great implications for our entire healthcare system to improve patient safety and reliably track outcomes in patients who have implanted devices," said Congresswoman Hooley. "I am honored to receive this award from the Premier healthcare alliance, Adventist Health and Salem Hospital."

President Bush signed into law on September 27, 2007, legislation that includes a provision requiring the FDA to put into place a UDI system to expedite and increase the reliability of medical device recalls and reduce healthcare costs. On March 26, the Advancing Patient Safety Coalition, comprised of prominent hospital, physician, nursing, research, quality and patient advocacy organizations, sent a letter to the FDA, urging them to develop a mandatory UDI system for medial devices and requesting a timeline from the FDA on its plans to publish a proposed rule. The coalition believes a UDI system is a critical factor to improving patient safety, reducing medical errors, facilitating device recalls, improving adverse event reporting and improving post-market surveillance efforts.

"Congresswoman Hooley has been a true leader in making this happen," said Blair Childs, Premier's senior vice president of Public Affairs. "We have the ability to track spinach that has E. coli back to the field where it was grown, but we can't track a recalled medical device because there is no unique numbering system. We owe it to all healthcare consumers to tackle this important issue."

About Adventist Health

Adventist Health is a not-for-profit, faith-based health system operating in California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington. Founded on the Seventh-day Adventist heritage of Christian health care, Adventist Health is comprised of 18 hospitals with more than 2,800 beds, nearly 18,000 employees, numerous clinics and outpatient facilities, the largest system of rural health clinics in California, 15 home care agencies and three joint-venture retirement centers with a fourth on the way. For more information, visit www.adventisthealth.org.

About Salem Hospital

Salem Hospital Regional Health Services is one of the largest of Oregon's 57 acute care hospitals and operates the busiest emergency department in Oregon. It is a not-for-profit hospital, licensed for 454 acute-care beds, and is guided by a 15-member volunteer Board of Trustees. The hospital is the city's largest private employer, with approximately 3,500 full- and part-time employees. There are 465 physicians on the active medical staff, representing 46 different specialties, who admit patients to the hospital. More than 275 volunteers provide non-medical support for the hospital.

About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

Serving 1,700 U.S. hospitals and more than 49,000 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 and Medicaid Services to improve hospital performance. Premier's Safety Institute provides publicly available safety resources and tools to promote a safe healthcare delivery environment for patients, workers, and their communities. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com. Established to improve the health of communities, Premier and its members are transforming healthcare together.

COPYRIGHT 2008 Business Wire
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning