Mercy Health Expands Strategic Partnership With Premier, Inc. to Advance Population Health Management

Mercy Health, Ohio's largest health system, has expanded its partnership with Premier, Inc. PINC, a leading healthcare improvement company, to further advance population health management, with an increased focus on care for chronically-ill patients. Serving more than 450 locations across Ohio and Kentucky, Mercy Health has assets of $6.1 billion and net operating revenue of $4.5 billion. Recently named one of 2015's Most Wired health systems, Mercy Health is Ohio's fourth largest employer, bringing together state-of-the-art technology and experts in over 100 specialties practicing at 23 hospitals. The mission-driven Catholic health system also includes a variety of housing sites for the elderly, home health agencies, hospice programs, wellness centers and other healthcare organizations. A Premier member for more than 20 years, Mercy Health has one of the most extensive strategic partnerships with Premier, using the company's full suite of supply chain, business intelligence and performance improvement services. In the past four years alone, this strategic partnership generated a savings of more than $117 million, better outcomes and patient experiences through cost and quality efficiencies, as well as advances in population health. "Nothing is more important to us than delivering high-quality, cost-effective care to the people we serve across Ohio and Kentucky," said Michael Connelly, president and CEO, Mercy Health. "Premier's solutions are important to helping us effectively share information across the continuum, identify opportunities for improvement and target specific interventions to populations in need. This long-standing partnership helps us make lives better and healthcare easier, which is our promise as a ministry." In expanding its partnership to further improve population health management, Mercy Health has joined Premier's integrated pharmacy and care management program, which harnesses otherwise unavailable clinical data to drive better, more valuable care for complex patient populations, including the chronically ill. Over the next five years, Mercy Health is expected to continue working in partnership with Premier to leverage group purchasing services for reduced expenses through the aggregation of data, purchasing and best practices; access industry-leading cloud-based SaaS analytics powered by Premier's performance improvement platform PremierConnect®; and benefit from Premier's advisory services to drive strategic improvements in continuum-wide care management, clinical integration and care quality optimization. Mercy Health is also expected to continue to share data and best practices with other alliance health systems as a member of Premier's quality improvement and population health collaboratives. An established leader in technology innovation, Mercy Health was the first user of Premier's data warehouse and business intelligence solution, PremierConnect Enterprise. It was also the first member of the Data Alliance Collaborative, helping to co-develop solutions by sharing knowledge, data and resources with leading information technology and clinical experts to address unmet healthcare needs. In doing so, Mercy Health helped to create Premier's recently-launched CommunityFocus™ solution, which helps providers prioritize and predict population health improvement initiatives. "Mercy Health is the prime example of what the Premier alliance can accomplish with a highly-engaged, strategic health system partner," said Michael J. Alkire, chief operating officer, Premier. "Together, we've worked to address industry issues hand-in-hand, co-innovating and building new solutions that curb costs, disrupt old practices and break data out of siloes. We are excited about the opportunities this partnership will pursue over the next five years and look forward to generating new innovations that benefit patients, families and communities." Providing guidance to help the Premier alliance continue to transform the healthcare industry, Mercy Health has senior level representation on Premier's Quality Improvement and Value Improvement Committees, as well as Premier's Strategic Advisory Committee. "A powerful force behind the success of the Premier alliance, Mercy Health is setting new standards in care delivery that are helping to improve outcomes and lower costs across the membership," said Susan DeVore, president and CEO, Premier. "They are a true asset in achieving our shared, continuous mission to improve the health of communities." The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.