Three Members Win Second Annual Premier Healthcare Alliance Supply Chain Innovation Award

Business Wire, June 13, 2008

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Premier healthcare alliance has honored three alliance members with its second annual Supply Chain Innovation Award for achieving successful innovations that have created new levels of performance and competitive advantage.

The awards were presented in ceremonies during Premier's annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition, which was held June 10-13 in Nashville, Tenn. Winners as determined by a nine-member panel of external, internal and member judges are:

* Aurora Health Care of Milwaukee, which won two awards, the first for creating an asset investment recovery program that has a cradle-to-grave approach to maximize the remaining value of unused or underutilized medical equipment. The second award is for inclusion of a centralized clinical engineering service model in the capital supply chain, thereby creating a fully integrated, cradle-to-grave approach to all assets.

* Montefiore Medical Center of New York City, a Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) member, for creating a materials par-stock process using predictive modeling and advanced technology known as materials replenishment processing. By development and utilization of a template to simplify the ordering process, a bill of material requires users to enter only quantity required. Montefiore influenced Premier's decision to develop supply chain technology to manage total spend (national, regional and local contracts) - not just proprietary national contracts - more efficiently and effectively.

* Geisinger Health System of Danville, Pa., for developing the use of the global location number (GLN) to structure membership within Premier. This innovative system assigns each healthcare location a unique 13-digit GLN. This registry keeps track of the name, address, class of trade, and organizational hierarchy information about each provider. Additionally, it maintains the same information about the healthcare manufacturers and distributors.

"These awards not only celebrate the successes of our top performers, but also encourage sharing of better practices and breakthrough ideas so we can all accelerate performance," Premier Purchasing Partners President Mike Alkire said. "The awards speak directly to several of the key roles of our Premier enterprise - improve quality and reduce costs, improve financial health, and improve organizational health.

"The Supply Chain Innovation Award recognizes members that have worked with Premier to introduce the most innovative, high-impact supply chain improvement ideas to our membership," Alkire said. "These winning ideas are already in place and are even now creating value for members."

Premier and alliance member judges included: Jeanie Brown, vice president, Health Enterprises, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Mike Bomstad, senior vice president, Child Health Care Corporation of America, Shawnee Mission, Kan.; Susan DeVore, COO, Premier; Tim Berkey, managing principal, Surgical Services, Premier Consulting Solutions; and Mike Alkire, president, Premier Purchasing Partners.

Judges for the Supply Chain Innovation Awards included outside experts Thomas Hughes, executive director, Strategic Marketplace Initiative, Scituate, Mass.; and Rick Dana Barlow, senior editor, Healthcare Purchasing News.

For more information, please visit: www.premierinc.com/about/news/awards/sc-performance-awards/index.jsp.> About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

Serving more than 2,000 U.S. hospitals and 51,000-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.