Thirty Premier hospitals in heart bypass surgery initiative save nearly $19

million one year after clinical performance improvement effort ends

The 30 Premier hospitals that submitted data and participated in the 1999-2000
heart bypass surgery initiative saved a total of nearly $19 million, according to
a study by a Premier analyst.

"That translates into an average savings of $850 per patient for the 22,130
discharged at these hospitals since the launch of the June 1999 initiative," said
Dr. Stephen Grossbart, director of Premier's Clinical Analytics. "The initiative
ended in November 2000. But we continued to track cost savings through March 2001.
Additional analysis showed that these 30 hospitals performed as well or better on
every quality indicator we could measure. It was a good return on investment."

While 62 hospitals participated in the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG)

initiative, Grossbart said that only 30 hospitals submitted data to Premier's
Perspective Online TM, a warehouse of patient-level and financial data. "By
encouraging hospitals to submit data for analysis, we can quantitatively show how
CABG and other Clinical Performance Initiatives are helping improve patient care."

"The statistics show the value of the CABG initiative," said Dr. Leslie McCombs,
the director in Premier's Clinical Performance Initiatives who led hospitals
through this yearlong clinical performance improvement process.

"Hospitals learned to standardize orders and medications. They learned how to

minimize handoffs and implemented aggressive preventive treatments (prophylaxis)
for a common complication after bypass surgery (atrial fibrillation). The efforts
improved the quality of patient care, enhanced safety, and saved participating
hospitals millions of dollars."

For hospitals that participated in the CABG initiative, the average annual total
cost per case (adjusted for wage and severity) increased 1.1 percent, less than
the current rate of inflation, to $20,419 per case. For the 79 open-heart surgery
hospitals that didn't participate in the initiative, the annual average cost
jumped 5.8 percent, to $23,724 per case. "While the annual average cost continues
to rise for hospitals not participating in the initiative, the cost for hospitals
that were involved in the initiative remained steady a year after the initiative
ended," said Grossbart.