The Premier Healthcare Alliance's Purchasing Partners division recognized 18 alliance members as winners of its second annual Supply Chain Excellence Award. Premier honored the winners - selected from its more than 2,000 eligible hospitals nationwide - at the 2008 Premier Annual Breakthroughs Conference & Exhibition in Nashville, Tenn.

Premier's Supply Chain Excellence Award is given to the nation's top hospitals achieving superior supply expense performance as measured by Premier's recently upgraded SupplyFocusTM, the industry's largest comparative database of operational and supply chain cost information for acute care hospitals. Winners were identified using four industry standard supply expense ratios and a case-mix-index-based peer grouping methodology to ensure that organizations of diverse sizes and complexity were considered equally.

"Achieving and sustaining strong supply chain performance is essential to a healthy bottom line, which ensures that the health needs of our community are met," said Premier Purchasing Partners President Mike Alkire. "We are pleased to recognize the significant accomplishments of

our Supply Chain Excellence Award winners."

To be eligible, each organization had to submit four quarters of calendar 2007 data to SupplyFocus by April 30, 2008. With 40 indicators measuring and trending performance in cost and operations, SupplyFocus enables hospitals to compare supply expense performance to that of similar facilities and easily identify improvement opportunities.

2008 Supply Chain Excellence winners are:
Adventist Glen Oaks Hospital - Glendale Heights, Ill.
Akron City Hospital - Akron, Ohio
Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital - Rocky Mount, Va.
Carilion Giles Memorial Hospital - Pearisburg, Va.
Carilion Clinic - Roanoke, Va.
Community Health Partners - Lorain, Ohio
Community United Methodist - Henderson, Ky.
Henry Ford Health System - Detroit
Henry Ford Hospital - Detroit
Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital - Wyandotte, Mich.
Marcum & Wallace Memorial Hospital - Irvine, Ky.
Mercy Memorial Hospital - Urbana, Ohio
Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center - Chicago
Presbyterian Kaseman Hospital - Albuquerque, N.M.
Randolph Hospital - Asheboro, N.C.
Saint Francis Hospital - Evanston, Ill.
Sinai - Grace Hospital - Detroit
Summa Health System - Akron, Ohio

For more information, please visit:
www.premierinc.com/about/news/awards/sc-performance-awards/index.jsp.

About Premier Inc.,
2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

Serving more than 2,000 U.S. hospitals and 51,000- 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.

More Industry Headlines