NASHVILLE, Tenn. & CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Premier Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC), a leading healthcare improvement company, recognized dozens of hospitals, health systems and suppliers today for their outstanding work to improve healthcare quality and costs.

“Health system and supplier recipients of Premier’s 2018 Breakthroughs Awards are industry leaders that continue to transform healthcare,” said Susan DeVore, president and CEO of Premier. “We are thrilled to recognize them for their innovative efforts to improve quality and efficiency, as well as the health of communities across the nation.”

Winners were announced during several awards ceremonies held at Premier’s annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition in Nashville, Tennessee on June 19. Each summer, thousands of health system, academic institution and supplier representatives attend the conference to learn practical, replicable strategies to improve healthcare delivery.

More information about the 2018 Premier Breakthroughs Awards can be found here and the full list of recipients can be found here.

Alternate Site Supplier Award

American Express and FedEx Corporation were the 2018 recipients of the Alternate Site Supplier Awards. These awards recognize Premier contracted suppliers that are working to extend product and service lines, and lower supply chain costs for alternate site healthcare providers and businesses. Suppliers are evaluated on the value of their contracted offerings, level of service, ease of contract attachment and activation, and overall support for Premier’s alternate site programs.

American Excess Insurance Exchange (AEIX) Risk Management Award

The AEIX Risk Management Award recognizes members that create care delivery practices to improve patient safety and enhance quality of care. Winners are selected based on care delivery practice effectiveness and potential applicability to other healthcare settings. Recipients of the award are:

• Eisenhower Health, California
• Fairview Health Services, Minnesota
• Presbyterian Healthcare Services, New Mexico

Supplier Diversity Award

American Medical Depot (AMD) received the Supplier Diversity Award for important contributions in developing and nurturing diversity programs across their organization and community.

Premier HIIN Award for Excellence in Patient Safety Across the Board

This award recognizes top-performing hospitals in Premier’s Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN) that have demonstrated excellence in performance across 13 patient safety adverse event areas of focus and with active participation in the HIIN program. This year, 27 hospitals were recognized for this work:

• Avera Sacred Heart Hospital, South Dakota – Avera Health
• Avera St. Luke's Hospital, South Dakota – Avera Health
• Bartow Regional Medical Center, Florida – BayCare Health System
• Berwick Hospital Center, Pennsylvania – Community Health Systems, Inc.
• Chester Regional Medical Center, South Carolina – Community Health Systems, Inc.
• CHI St. Luke's Health-Lakeside Hospital, Texas – CHI Texas Division
• Greer Memorial Hospital, South Carolina – Greenville Health System
• Hampton Regional Medical Center, South Carolina – Hampton Regional Medical Center
• Hillcrest Memorial Hospital, South Carolina – Greenville Health System
• Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital, Hawaii – Hawaii Health Systems Corporation
• L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital, Alabama – L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital
• McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital, Ohio – TriHealth, Inc.
• Medical Center Enterprise, Alabama – Community Health Systems, Inc.
• Methodist Hospital South, Texas – Methodist Healthcare System
• Navarro Regional Hospital, Texas – Community Health Systems, Inc.
• New England Baptist Hospital, Massachusetts – New England Baptist Hospital
• Newberry County Memorial Hospital, South Carolina – Newberry Country Memorial Hospital
• North Mississippi Medical Center-West Point, Mississippi – North Mississippi Health Services
• Northern Nevada Medical Center, Nevada – Universal Health Services, Inc.
• Patewood Memorial Hospital, South Carolina – Greenville Health System
• Paul B. Hall Regional Medical Center, Kentucky – Quorum Health Corporation
• Shands Lake Shore Regional Medical Center, Florida – Community Health Systems, Inc.
• St. Luke's Miners Campus, Pennsylvania – St. Luke's University Health Network
• St. Luke's Quakertown Campus, Pennsylvania – St. Luke's University Health Network
• The Outer Banks Hospital, North Carolina – Vidant Health
• UnityPoint Health - Trinity Muscatine, Iowa – UnityPoint Health
• Vidant Beaufort Hospital, North Carolina – Vidant Health

QUEST^® Award for High-Value Healthcare

This award recognizes hospitals that reached the top performance threshold in all five dimensions of QUEST2020™, as well as the top performers across six peer group categories that address hospital size and academic status. The six peer group categories were academic hospitals, critical access hospitals, teaching hospitals ≥ 375 beds, teaching hospitals < 375 beds, non-teaching hospitals ≥175 beds and non-teaching hospitals < 175 beds.

QUEST2020 hospitals achieving top performance in any 4 of the 5 dimensions of QUEST2020, as well as the runner-ups in the six peer groups, were recognized as award finalists and are listed on the Breakthroughs Award winner website.

The 2018 winners reaching the top performance threshold in all five dimensions of QUEST2020 were:

• Baptist Memorial Hospital-Tipton, Tennessee – Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation
• Bon Secours Richmond Community Hospital, Virginia – Bon Secours Health System, Inc.

The 2018 winners of the peer group performance awards were:

• CHI St. Joseph Health Grimes Hospital, Texas – CHI Texas Division (Top Performer - critical access hospital)
• CHI St. Luke’s Health-Memorial Lufkin, Texas – CHI Texas Division (Top Performer - non-teaching hospital =>175)
• CHI St. Luke’s Health-Lakeside Hospital, Texas – CHI Texas Division (Top Performer - non-teaching hospital <175)
• CHI St. Luke’s Health-Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, Texas – CHI Texas Division (Top Performer – teaching hospital =>375)
• Geisinger Lewistown Hospital, Pennsylvania – Geisinger (Top Performer – teaching hospital <375)
• Kuakini Medical Center, Hawaii – Kuakini Health System (Top Performer – academic hospital)

Supplier Legacy Award

The following suppliers that have contracted with Premier for more than three years received the Supplier Legacy Award for their longstanding work to support Premier members through exceptional local customer service and engagement, value creation through clinical excellence and commitment to lower costs.

• 3M Company
• Care Line Industries, Inc.
• CDW Healthcare
• Fresenius Kabi USA
• GSK
• Olé Mexican Foods, Inc.
• Owens & Minor, Inc.
• Physio-Control, now part of Stryker
• Private Eyes Background Checks
• Siemens Healthineers (awarded in two lines of business)
• STERIS Corporation (awarded in two lines of business)

Supplier Horizon Award

The following suppliers that have contracted with Premier for less than three years received the Supplier Horizon Award for exceptional local customer service and engagement, value creation through clinical excellence and commitment to lower costs.

• Allseating Corporation
• Blackhive Corp.
• CenTrak Inc.
• Exela Pharma Sciences
• Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
• Hitachi Healthcare Americas
• Leica Biosystems
• Penumbra, Inc.
• SpendMend
• TRX BioSurgery
• Wy'East Medical

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 to transform healthcare. With integrated data and analytics, collaboratives, supply chain solutions, and consulting 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.

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