Premier Inc. Launches QUEST® 2020
Next iteration of QUEST is designed for health systems to thrive in healthcare’s value-based economy
Premier Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC), a leading healthcare improvement company, has announced a new initiative to
accelerate effective value-based care delivery practices across health systems.
QUEST® 2020 builds on the legacy of Premier’s nationally-recognized QUEST collaborative, a quality improvement initiative launched in 2008 to help hospitals
prepare for alternative payment models and provide high-value care across U.S. communities. The new program leverages learnings
from QUEST and extends beyond hospital walls to provide compliance, improvement and specialized support for health systems to
thrive in today’s healthcare economy.
“Healthcare’s progression toward requiring alternative payment models presents a new dynamic reality to address,” said Susan
DeVore, president and CEO of Premier. “QUEST 2020 is a next generation model designed to help health systems meet and exceed
performance demands as compliance and regulatory measures continue to evolve. It’s the result of leading providers that prepared
themselves for today’s environment and now need a quality improvement program that expands into the continuum to be ready for
tomorrow.”
QUEST 2020 is a three-year program to inspire, support and guide health systems in embracing their skills to transform the
design, quality and performance of care delivery by connecting them with peers, evidence-based practices and data. The program is
fully aligned with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s National Quality Strategy to provide better, more affordable care for individuals and the community. A key
feature of QUEST 2020 is helping all provider stakeholders understand and comply with federal reimbursement requirements, such as
the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act and the Merit-based Incentive Payment System. The program officially activates in
January 2017 as new policies for physicians and post-acute care providers begin assessing performance to determine value-based
payment.
“Today, providers are expected to navigate the maze of new regulations and legislative mandates while implementing best
practices to reduce costs and improve quality, and juggling the adoption of operating capabilities to accommodate the transition to
value-based models,” said Teri Sholder, chief quality officer at Kettering Health Network, which serves southwest Ohio and plans to
participate in QUEST 2020. “QUEST has been a crucial part of the progress we’ve made in becoming a population health leader. For
example, as a participant in QUEST, we improved patient safety by 36 percent across all six of our hospitals. We’re excited to join
QUEST 2020 and build on what we’ve learned as we extend our performance improvement work beyond acute care.”
QUEST 2020 participants will share acute, ambulatory and community health data to set national standards for care delivery
improvement. The program aims to drive improvement across six priority areas: safety, communication and care coordination,
affordable care, person and family experience, health and wellbeing, and prevention and treatment. In addition, QUEST 2020 provides
three entry points based on participant needs.
- Compliance: Translate and comply with complex legislative implications, as well as regulatory
reporting and programmatic requirements, and take advantage of opportunities.
- Improvement: Enhance performance by integrating and effectively analyzing ambulatory, community and
quality data.
- Specialized: Engage a broad scope of stakeholders outside the quality department and beyond hospital
walls to solve targeted service line challenges.
Built from learnings gleaned from the Premier and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration, which focused payment on reporting, QUEST’s approximately 350
hospitals saved approximately 176,000 lives and $15 billion, improved readmission rates by 32 percent and proved they outperform non-QUEST hospitals in mortality. QUEST was nationally recognized by The Joint Commission and National Quality Forum for improving patient safety and healthcare quality. An article
about QUEST appears in the June 2016 edition of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.
Premier leverages a proven methodology for performance improvement that enables providers to learn from top performers, share
data and outcomes, and accelerate and sustain quality, efficiency and safety innovations across their organizations.
About Premier Inc.
Premier Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC) is a leading healthcare improvement company, uniting an alliance of approximately 3,600 U.S.
hospitals and 120,000 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 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, 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.
Premier Inc.
Morgan Guthrie, 704-816-4152
Morgan_Guthrie@PremierInc.com
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