The Premier healthcare alliance has launched a new technology and consulting program to bridge the gap between clinical and business processes in hospitals.

Premier Consulting Solutions' (PCS) ProviderConnect is designed to help hospitals and health systems improve quality and outcomes, control costs and increase profitability. The program makes it possible to view their organization's future through the lens of a physician to ensure effective and optimal collaborative relationships, according to officials.

Supported by industry and clinical experts, ProviderConnect uses data from Premier's Perspective database, a repository of clinical, financial and operational data, to help physicians provide quality care in a changing revenue and reimbursement landscape. Perspective houses patient level data from more than 700 hospitals, 45 million patient records and 210 million outpatient visits at hospitals.

"You must align incentives with physicians, so one goal was to ensure the physicians are on board with process changes," said Lynette Wheeler, a cardiac, vascular and pulmonary service leader at Heartland Health in St. Joseph, Mo., where PCS is involved in a three-year engagement. "We agreed we needed to get the hospital processes in order before we engaged the physicians."

Wheeler said Heartland made use of the program in a redesign of its cath lab.

"We looked at the charge master and validated that we were capturing all charges," she said. "We looked at surgery. We looked at clinic processes and how they affected the cath lab and the inpatient areas. We looked at supplies."

Wait times caught the physicians' attention, she said. In the first month of implementing simple scheduling changes, she said, half the physicians cut wait times in half.

"Since one goal is improving patient satisfaction, this was a definite winner," Wheeler said.

"ProviderConnect stresses physician involvement from the beginning of the process, utilizing credible, comparative data reflective of actual activities and resources consumed across an episode of care," said Wes Champion, senior vice president of PCS. "Our ability to offer this data, so necessary to engage physicians, is what truly drives change leading to quality and cost improvements."

ProviderConnect uses a mix of Premier technologies and solutions, including:

• SpendAdvisor, which analyzes total supply spending and identifies savings opportunities;
• QualityAdvisor, which allows users to benchmark with top performers and prioritize resource use and quality improvement efforts;
• OperationsAdvisor, which offers productivity monitoring, assessment and comparative data;
• SafetySurveillor, which improves infection prevention efforts and reduces costs associated with healthcare-associated infections (HAIs);
• ValueAdvisor, which tracks value analysis to clinically and financially return on investment; and
• Clinical focus tools, which provide price benchmarks on physician preference items, including implantable devices.

It also features consulting services around physician alignment, service line strategy and revenue, physician preference items, practice and service line assessment and development, revenue cycle and reimbursement.