Lafayette General Health Extends and Expands 20-Year Partnership With Premier, Inc.

Academic Health System Leveraging Premier Supply Chain and Performance Services to Improve Health in Louisiana Communities


CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 3, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lafayette General Health (LGH) has extended its nearly 20-year partnership with Premier, Inc. (Nasdaq:PINC) for an additional five years, as well as expanded access to Premier performance services across all of its hospitals.

LGH is a nonprofit, community-owned regional health system with six hospitals, including two major teaching hospitals, and several affiliations with facilities that serve the south-central region of Louisiana. For years, its flagship hospital, Lafayette General Medical Center, has used both Premier's supply chain and performance services to drive cost and quality efficiencies, as well as better outcomes and patient experiences.

"Our long-term, strategic partnership with Premier has supported Lafayette General Health as we've grown to become a strong, aligned organization," said David L. Callecod, president, LGH. "As we further transition toward high-value care delivery, Premier is our trusted partner in implementing cost-effective solutions that improve outcomes across the continuum."

The extended agreement between LGH and Premier is effective through March 2020. LGH hospitals will continue to leverage Premier's group purchasing organization to reduce expenses through the aggregation of data, purchasing and best practices. In addition, Lafayette General Medical Center will continue to access industry-leading SaaS (software-as-a-service) quality, safety and operations analytics powered by Premier's performance improvement platform PremierConnect®. PremierConnect enables the sharing of insights and integrated data from alliance members to drive effective and efficient clinical, financial and operational decisions.

In expanding the partnership, all LGH hospitals, including any future hospital sites, will implement the following PremierConnect SaaS solutions to rapidly aggregate, cleanse and manage their data for actionable insights on care delivery and outcomes.

  • PremierConnect Quality analytics to drive quality cycle management, improve resource utilization and eliminate unjustified variation.
  • PremierConnect Safety clinical surveillance analytics to monitor and protect patients from infections, harmful drug interactions and other adverse events.
  • PremierConnect Operations labor and productivity benchmarking analytics for insights on labor performance across the continuum of care, including hospitals, physician practices and outpatient care facilities.

"Healthcare transformation takes providers coming together to share innovations and insights with each other. It also demands an integrated approach to performance improvement that spans the scope of all points in the care process," said Michael J. Alkire, chief operating officer, Premier. "Over the years, Lafayette General Health has been essential to the co-creation of solutions that solve tomorrow's demands. We look forward to continuing to work with them as an enabling agent of change helping to further their mission to improve the health of Louisiana communities and scale solutions that work across the country."

The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

About Lafayette General Health

Lafayette General Health (LGH) is a nonprofit, community-owned regional healthcare system committed to always delivering excellence. LGH serves the south-central region of Louisiana by aligning with facilities across a 10-parish area known as Acadiana. LGH's flagship hospital, Lafayette General Medical Center, in operation since 1911, is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that does not pay out any revenue to shareholders as for-profits do. LGH also owns or manages Lafayette General Surgical Hospital, St. Martin Hospital, University Hospital & Clinics, Acadia General Hospital and Abrom Kaplan Memorial Hospital, and has several affiliations with facilities across the region. Both Lafayette General Medical Center and University Hospital & Clinics are major teaching hospitals, providing graduate medical education across many disciplines. LGH owns LGMD, a nonprofit corporation that operates and manages several physician clinics including Family Medicine and Internal Medicine, as well as many specialists and surgeons. In 2014, LGH offered charity services in excess of $250 million. LGH property and assets total nearly $450 million, employing approximately 3,500 staff. For more information about LGH and its affiliates, visit www.LafayetteGeneral.com.

About Premier, Inc.

Premier, Inc. (Nasdaq:PINC) is a leading healthcare improvement company, uniting an alliance of approximately 3,400 U.S. hospitals and 110,000 other providers to transform healthcare. 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, Foursquare 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 LGH's anticipated use of Premier's performance and supply chain services at expected levels, 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.

CONTACT: Morgan Bridges-Guthrie, Premier, Inc.; 704.816.4152; Morgan_Bridges@PremierInc.com