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Appalachian Regional Healthcare Joins Premier As Affiliate of Norton Healthcare

Posted on: Thursday, 15 March 2007, 12:00 CDT

Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH), a not-for-profit system operating nine hospitals, physician practices, and a variety of other healthcare services in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia, has selected the Premier alliance as its group purchasing and supply chain services partner.

ARH is the largest provider of care and single largest private employer in southeastern Kentucky and the third largest private employer in southern West Virginia. Formerly with VHA, Inc.-Novation, ARH joins Premier as an affiliate of Norton Healthcare of Louisville, Ky., the largest integrated delivery system in Kentucky. The combined annual supply spend is expected to exceed $200 million including pharmacy.

ARH's new relationship is through Alliant Purchasing LLC, Norton Healthcare's outreach arm for Premier affiliations.

"We look forward to our new relationship with Premier," said Chris Ellington, Vice President Fiscal Affairs and Chief Financial Officer for ARH. "The key differentiator in our selection of Premier was the ability to participate in a formal affiliation with Norton Healthcare that will extend beyond supply chain initiatives alone. We see tremendous opportunity to enhance our clinical and quality services through the affiliation with Norton."

Premier Inc. COO Susan D. DeVore said, "As the largest group purchasing organization in the United States, Premier uses its $27 billion of national buying power to leverage best price advantage for our members, but that's only the beginning of partnership benefits. Through our affiliate program, community-based hospitals like ARH can realize significant purchasing value by aligning with larger healthcare organizations. By working with Norton, ARH can maximize both savings and service quality."

Norton Healthcare Vice President of Materiel Management George Hersch said, "Norton Healthcare values the opportunity to work with Appalachian Regional Healthcare. This relationship will not only reduce supply costs but also shares with ARH physicians and administrators the resources of our healthcare organization to drive improvement in care to the communities ARH serves. We especially appreciate ARH's commitment to aggregate as much of its purchasing volumes as possible with Norton and contract together under the Premier umbrella. This commitment will significantly increase savings to ARH and will also benefit Norton by reducing our organization's supply costs."

ARH operates seven hospitals in Kentucky and two in West Virginia. Kentucky hospitals are Harlan ARH Hospital in Harlan, Hazard ARH Regional in Hazard, McDowell ARH Hospital in McDowell, Middlesboro ARH Hospital in Middlesboro, Morgan County ARH Hospital in West Liberty, Whitesburg ARH Hospital in Whitesburg, and Williamson ARH Hospital in South Williamson. West Virginia hospitals are Beckley ARH Hospital in Beckley and Summers County ARH Hospital in Hinton.

About Appalachian Regional Healthcare

The Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) system is a not-for-profit health system serving 350,000 residents across Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia. With nine hospitals, 12 physician practices, eight home health agencies, 12 HomeCare Stores and 12 retail pharmacies, ARH is the largest provider of care and single largest employer in southeastern Kentucky and the third largest private employer in southern West Virginia. The ARH system employs 4,600 employees and has a network of more than 400 active and courtesy medical staff members representing various specialties. Firmly committed to its mission of improving the health and promoting the well-being of all people in Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia, ARH provided nearly $93 million in charity and uncompensated care in the past year alone.

About Norton Healthcare

Norton Healthcare is the Louisville area's leading hospital and healthcare system (45 percent market share) and third largest private employer. The not-for-profit system -- the largest in Kentucky and rated one of the top 100 integrated healthcare delivery systems in the country -- includes four large hospitals in Louisville, eight Norton Immediate Care Centers, 9,500 employees, 220 employed medical providers at more than 50 locations, and nearly 2,000 physicians on its medical staff. Norton Healthcare serves the Greater Louisville metro area, including Southern Indiana, and patients throughout Kentucky.

About Alliant Purchasing

Alliant Purchasing, based in Louisville, is Norton Healthcare's outreach arm for Premier affiliations. The company offers materials management services and programs to over 130 regional healthcare providers. Alliant Purchasing uses national contracts negotiated by Premier as well as regional agreements with manufacturers and distributors. Alliant Purchasing is a partnership of Norton Healthcare and Blue Management Services LLC, based in Louisville.

About Premier, 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

Serving 1,700 hospitals and nearly 45,000 other healthcare sites, Premier Inc. is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates the nation's largest healthcare purchasing network, the most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information and one of the largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups in healthcare. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C. and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.

Source: Business Wire

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