FDA Selects Premier Healthcare Alliance As Source For Inpatient Drug Data

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 09 Nov 2007 - 11:00 PDT

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has awarded a multi-year contract to the Premier healthcare alliance to provide data for post-marketing drug surveillance, supporting the FDA's Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology and the Office of New Drugs, Pediatric and Maternal Health staff in their effort to evaluate drug risks and promote the safer use of prescription drugs by Americans. The FDA has accessed Perspective information relating to inpatient drug use in hospitals since 2001.

FDA access to Premier's Perspective™ database, the largest integrated clinical, financial and operational comparative database in the nation, will complement and strengthen the utility of passive reporting systems currently in place by providing estimates of the number of adult and pediatric patients exposed to drugs nationwide in the inpatient setting. In addition, direct access to the data enhances and accelerates the pace of the FDA's regulatory decision-making process.

"After an evaluation process by the FDA, Premier is excited to again be selected as the FDA's current source for inpatient data," said Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president for Premier Healthcare Informatics. "Premier's work with the FDA not only supports the FDA's mission to protect public health, it also helps support Premier's mission of improving the health of communities."

Perspective is used by approximately 600 hospitals for benchmarking and quality improvement activities and comprises more than 130 million patient visit records. Hospitals submit data to Premier which validates, analyzes and formats the data to make it meaningful for hospitals.

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

Serving 1,700 hospitals and more than 49,000 other healthcare sites, Premier is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates one of the nation's largest healthcare purchasing networks, the most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information and one of the largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups in healthcare. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, and Washington.

http://www.premierinc.com

http://www.fda.gov