Premier Healthcare Alliance Calls for Full Transparency of Medicare Hospital Quality Measurement

Business Wire, June 9, 2008

Use of Proprietary Databases, Methodologies or Tools Undermines Cost Savings, Creates Monopolistic Pricing Power for Private Vendors

WASHINGTON -- Members of the Premier healthcare alliance Quality Improvement Committee issued a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), strongly objecting to the inclusion of quality measures for public reporting that require use of undisclosed proprietary data, methodologies or tools. The CEOs, representing 16 hospitals and health systems comprising more than 100 hospitals, stated that the use of undisclosed proprietary sources available only through private organizations will create costly requirements on hospitals, slow the movement to electronic health records, and create monopolistic pricing power for private vendors.

Premier also sent a separate letter to the National Quality Forum (NQF) opposing the use of any quality measures that depend on proprietary methodologies or tools as contrary to the public interest and evidence-based quality improvement.

"The Premier healthcare alliance is concerned that the proprietary nature of private registries, methodologies, or tools could diminish transparency, a cornerstone of Medicare's hospital quality reporting program," said Charles Hart, M.D., M.S., chair of the Premier healthcare alliance Quality Improvement Committee and CEO of Regional Health in South Dakota.

In order for quality measures to be meaningful for public reporting, they must be collected and reported in the same way. This means that the terms, format, calculations, submission, validation and other aspects of the data collection and reporting must be in the public domain for the data to be comparable. Integrating proprietary quality measures that do not make all of the necessary elements publicly available creates obstacles for hospitals to consistently collect and report these measures unless they pay a fee.

Moreover, many of the proprietary methodologies require significant manual abstraction of data, rather than automated abstraction, and could force hospitals to hire additional dedicated staff for each measurement area.

"This is a step backwards for hospitals at precisely the same time they are moving forward with electronic quality reporting to improve efficiency," said Hart. "Continuing to ask hospitals to manually abstract more data, and for multiple vendors, adds a significant financial burden and diverts attention from the intent of data collection - looking for opportunities to improve care outcomes, patient safety and care delivery efficiency."

In responding to the NQF Task Force's recommendations on this topic, Premier urged the NQF to use its role as a consensus organization to ensure complete public transparency of data, methodologies and other elements related to any measures it endorses so that all hospitals and other interested parties can replicate it.

"Private sector innovation can contribute valuable methodologies that enhance quality measures, and that innovation should be encouraged," said Blair Childs, Premier healthcare alliance senior vice president of Public Affairs. "However, measures subject to public reporting, and those used as a basis of reimbursement, must be fully transparent to providers and the general public. Monopolistic suppliers of quality measures that are required in public programs are unacceptable."

"Premier is living this commitment," said Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president of Healthcare Informatics. "Premier has released the necessary information to reproduce our NQF-endorsed, risk-adjusted average length of stay measure and the Premier CareScience risk-adjusted mortality measure."

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.