Premier has added seven new members to its Bundled Payment Collaborative, which now includes 17 healthcare provider systems with more than 45 hospitals across the country. Bundled payment care models are projected to save $2.4 billion nationwide over the next five years.

With a focus on episode-based care, Premier's Bundled Payment Collaborative was launched in July 2012 to help providers develop, implement and use bundled payment arrangements in both public and private markets.

New members of the collaborative are:

• Adventist Health, Roseville, Calif.
• Centra Health Inc., Lynchburg, Va.
• El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, Calif.
• Regional Health, Rapid City, S.D.
• Regional Medical Center, Orangeburg, S.C.
• Rockford Memorial Hospital, Rockford, Ill.
• Southwest General Health Center, Middleburg Heights, Ohio

Premier's Bundled Payment Collaborative members use Premier's integrated technology and social business platform, PremierConnect, which combines all of Premier's data assets -- including data on one in four U.S. hospital discharges, evidence-based best practices from 2.5 million daily clinical transactions and $40 billion in annual provider purchases -- on a single platform, as described by Premier executives. The platform also serves as a hub for providers to network across the nation.

[See also: Premier makes big connect with big data.]

Bundled payment models allow providers to bid as a team to provide a services for a predetermined target amount to include physician payment, nursing-home care, surgery and other care, most commonly for treatments such as heart, colon and spinal surgery, as well as hip and knee replacements. Premier's Bundled Payment Collaborative serves as a convener, providing ongoing analysis, assessment, technical assistance, education and knowledge sharing to those interested in designing a bundled payment program.

Members of the collaborative share best practices and data with each other. They focus on improving care and reducing costs across multiple episodes of care, including hip/knee joint replacement, lumbar spine fusion, coronary artery bypass grafts, heart valve replacement, congestive heart failure, percutaneous coronary intervention and colon resection.

"Last year, Premier helped us design our bundled payment program to include care redesign analytics around the post-acute environment, risk track evaluation, gainsharing model design and implementation planning," Tammy Duvendack, vice president of care transformation at UnityPoint Methodist in Peoria, Ill., a Bundled Payment Collaborative member, said in a news release. "With years of experience and data from its other healthcare improvement collaboratives, Premier helped support our efforts to go live in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative."

CMS created this initiative to link payments for the multiple services beneficiaries receive during an episode of care. Within the initiative's four broadly defined models, Premier is helping to support awardees that are focusing on hospital stay and post-acute care services.

"Through our strong relationship with CMS, the knowledge and information we've gained from our member base, and our integrated data solutions, we've developed the expertise to help providers improve patient care, engage physicians in effective partnerships, avoid Medicare penalties and better manage reimbursement reductions," said Wes Champion, senior vice president of Premier Performance Partners, in a statement.

[See also:Hospitals Save $120 Million Using Data-Driven Purchasing.]

Premier's Bundled Payment Collaborative provides:

• Ongoing analysis of Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B claims data;
• Insights into cost reduction opportunities by MS-DRG;
• Care redesign guidance across the entire episode;
• Gainsharing legal templates and financial models;
• Contracting and application support for both commercial and CMS bundled payment models;
• Exploration of bundling innovations such as ambulatory bundling; and
• Data, knowledge and best practices from other collaborative members