CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Premier Inc., (NASDAQ: PINC), a leading healthcare improvement company, announced the launch of a unique new national program designed to drive the highest-level commitment and savings for members through aggregated purchasing of high quality products and services. The collaborative will also leverage Premier’s robust tools and services to measure and improve the cost and quality of care. Standardizing the care delivery process is a central pillar within the total cost management approach in achieving highly reliable care.

"This program is a way for Premier to provide a contracting platform for our most committed members based on their ability to drive standardization and transform the supply chain,” said David A. Hargraves, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at Premier. “Top performing organizations understand the value of reducing variation and assessing utilization to improve quality of care, drive greater efficiencies and reduce operating costs. Scaling these supply chain best practices across our alliance will provide a new benefit to both our members and our contracted suppliers."

The new program will bring together Premier’s most committed members who are able to coordinate purchasing decisions and maintain standardization across their facilities. Through this unique collaboration, Premier members participating in this program are expected to achieve the scale needed for maximum price concessions. By providing additional value to Premier contracted suppliers through volume and commitment, the program is expected to achieve best-in-market pricing in every category chosen for members.

“Faced with drastic reimbursement and 340B cuts, providers are in desperate need for savings. Top-performing companies in healthcare and other industries have streamlined their supply chains around preferred vendors to reduce variation, enable utilization analysis and reduce costs,” said Rich Statuto, president and CEO of Bon Secours Health System and the Chairman of Premier’s Board of Directors. “I believe Premier’s Highly Committed Program will scale this practice to a new level, and we’re excited to take part in this.”

Building on the work performed today by Premier's member-driven sourcing committee, the program will incorporate a specialized clinical review by leveraging PremierConnect^® clinical, operational and financial data and incorporate feedback from physicians to assess and select supplier products based on quality, safety and compliance to regulatory and FDA standards.

The program will be led by a select group of core members with significant aggregated spend that can achieve and maintain compliance across their facilities. This group will develop and drive the strategy for the program, as well as make all contracting decisions. Additional members will be invited to join the program following the initial launch.

The new program, complements Premier’s existing ASCEND performance group, by offering even greater savings at a correspondingly higher level of commitment. ASCEND, one of the nation’s largest committed programs with over 120,000 acute care beds and combined purchasing volume of more than $18 billion, continues to drive significant savings for participants. To drive competition, lower costs and help prevent shortages, Premier combines compliance-based contracting, advocacy and direct sourcing programs to attract more drug manufacturers – fostering healthier markets with lower barriers to entry.

About Premier Inc.

Premier Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC) is a leading healthcare improvement company, uniting an alliance of approximately 3,900 U.S. hospitals and health systems and approximately 150,000 other providers and organizations. 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, such as expected savings and other expected benefits to members and suppliers, 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.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180207005078/en/