North Mississippi Medical Center Expands Affiliation with Premier Healthcare Alliance to Include Infection Tracking Tool

Will Participate in QUEST

CHARLOTTE, N.C.–(EMWNews)–The Premier healthcare alliance today announced that it is expanding its

relationship with North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC). The Tupelo,

Miss.-based healthcare system, which in 2006 was named a Malcolm

Baldrige National Quality Award recipient along with Premier Inc., will

deploy both the infection control and pharmacy modules of Premier’s

SafetySurveillor™.

The third largest rural healthcare system in the nation will use

SafetySurveillor to track and prevent healthcare-associated infections

(HAIs) and to optimize antibiotic use, thereby increasing patient safety

and reducing costs.

NMMC also joins QUEST: High Performing Hospitals, a Premier program

designed to help hospitals and healthcare systems drive healthcare to

new levels of performance. QUEST will develop next-generation quality,

safety and cost metrics with a level of consistency and standardization

that does not exist today.

The diversified not-for-profit healthcare system serving 22 counties in

north Mississippi and northwest Alabama has used Quality Manager for

more than seven years to collect, aggregate, and analyze Joint

Commission/CMS Core Measure data, identify areas for clinical outcomes

improvement, and implement process changes that directly impact patient

care.

NMMC Chief Quality Officer Dr. Michael L. O’Dell

said, “Safety and control of spread of

infections are top priorities for NMMC –

Tupelo and our affiliated community hospitals. A patient with an

infection presents us with two mandates: a mandate to discover that

infection rapidly and successfully treat the patient and a mandate to

protect other patients, staff, and visitors from inadvertently being

exposed to that same infection. HAIs are particularly important to us in

that these illnesses are often more difficult than most to treat once

acquired. SafetySurveillor offers us a better means to meet our mandates.”

NMMC will deploy SafetySurveillor at the 650-bed North Mississippi

Medical Center, the system’s flagship

hospital, and NMMC Women’s Hospital, both in

Tupelo, as well as community hospitals in Eupora, Iuka, Pontotoc and

West Point, Miss., and Hamilton, Ala.

More than 200 hospitals nationwide have chosen the Web-based

application, making SafetySurveillor the most widely adopted infection

control solution in the past 12 months. It helps hospitals meet

state-mandated public reporting of certain HAIs, including screening for

methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium

difficile, some of the most common and harmful infections found in

hospitals today. With SafetySurveillor hospitals can automatically

detect HAIs and alert staff, facilitating timely intervention to reduce

and prevent infections.

Premier’s SafetySurveillor is one of the HAI

surveillance system software vendors participating in a Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention project to develop a standards-based

solution for transmission of HAI data from hospitals using existing

commercial software systems to the agency’s National Healthcare Safety

network.

North Mississippi Health Services

North Mississippi Health Services is a diversified regional healthcare

organization, which serves 22 counties in north Mississippi and

northwest Alabama from headquarters in Tupelo. The NMHS organization

covers a broad range of acute diagnostic and therapeutic services,

offered through North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo; a community

hospital system with locations in Eupora, Iuka, Pontotoc, and West Point

in Mississippi and Hamilton in Alabama; and North Mississippi Medical

Clinics, a regional network of more than 30 primary and specialty

clinics; and nursing homes. NMHS offers a comprehensive portfolio of

managed care plans. Educational programs and early intervention are

important aspects of our services, but our main focus is to provide

convenient access to quality health care. NMHS works to achieve its

corporate mission to improve the health of the people of this region by

providing conveniently accessible, cost-effective healthcare of the

highest quality.

About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

recipient

Serving more than 2,000 U.S. hospitals and 53,000-plus other healthcare

sites, the Premier healthcare alliance and its members are transforming

healthcare together. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates

one of the leading healthcare purchasing networks and the nation’s most

comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information.

A subsidiary operates one of the nation’s largest policy-holder owned,

hospital professional liability risk-retention groups. A world leader in

helping healthcare providers deliver dramatic improvements in care,

Premier is working with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service

North West and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to improve

hospital performance. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in

Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia and Washington. For more information,

visit www.premierinc.com.

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