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Eight Ohio Hospitals Select Innovative Infection Control Technology to Better Protect Patients

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 January 2008, 15:00 CST

The Premier Inc. healthcare alliance today announced that eight Ohio-based hospitals have joined the nearly 200 hospitals that have selected Premier's SafetySurveillor™ as their Web-based tool used to detect and alert staff of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). SafetySurveillor protects patients by continuously tracking HAIs and antibiotic use to monitor prevention and control activities.

Ohio hospitals that selected SafetySurveillor to better protect patients while meeting public reporting requirements include:

Kettering Health Network, Kettering -- four hospitals;

Summa Health System, Akron -- two hospitals;

A Cincinnati-based hospital system -- two hospitals.

SafetySurveillor helps hospitals meet state-mandated public reporting of certain HAIs, including screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile, some of the most common and harmful infections found in hospitals today. Due to the large volume of clinical data that needs to be analyzed, many hospitals have resources to do targeted surveillance of high-risk patients only. With the automated SafetySurveillor system, hospitals have the ability to detect HAIs, alert staff and facilitate timely intervention to reduce and prevent infections.

SafetySurveillor has also been chosen by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an HAI surveillance system software vendor participant in developing a standards-based solution for transmission of HAI data from existing commercial software systems to the agency's National Healthcare Safety Network.

Premier SafetySurveillor is integrated into the Premier Performance Suite™, which includes benchmarking, reporting analysis and real-time surveillance of clinical, safety, financial, operational, labor productivity and supply data. The Premier Performance Suite is powered by Perspective™, the largest integrated clinical, financial and operational comparative database in the nation, providing patient-level detail to identify opportunities for improvement in clinical quality and efficiency.

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 is working to transform healthcare. Owned by non-profit hospitals, Premier operates one of the largest healthcare purchasing networks and the nation's largest 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. Premier is also working with the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West region to implement a model pay-for-performance program, called "Advancing Quality."

Nearly 200 hospitals have selected Premier's real-time SafetySurveillor™ application to prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and optimize antibiotic use, protecting patients and reducing hospital costs.

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.

Source: Business Wire

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