Can you introduce Premier Inc. and what it means to be a healthcare improvement company?

Premier is a leading healthcare improvement company, uniting an alliance of more than 4,400 US hospitals and health systems and approximately 250,000 other providers and organizations to transform healthcare. Premier has integrated data and analytics, collaboratives, supply chain solutions, consulting, and other services available to healthcare organizations, enabling better care and outcomes at a lower cost. Premier plays a critical role in the rapidly evolving healthcare industry, collaborating with members to co-develop long-term innovations that reinvent and improve the way care is delivered to patients nationwide. In July 2022, Premier’s Performance Services business rebranded as PINC AI, and there are many areas within that business that make us a performance improvement company. Overall, PINC AI^™ is one of the fastest-growing pieces of our business. We sell technology and data to hospitals, healthcare systems and life sciences organizations, and as part of PINC AI Applied Sciences,we get the opportunity to research alongside these organizations. The PINC AI Applied Sciences team works on prospective, retrospective and improvement science research as well as clinical trials to help close gaps in care, accelerate evidence into practice and implement workflow solutions to hardwire sustainable change.

What are the latest innovations you have invested in to advance healthcare solutions in digital medicine?

We applied technology-enabled tools and data ontologies in the field of oncology. What we found was disparate care, so we have focused efforts towards helping health systems standardize practices among the various patient touchpoints. This can be accomplished through early patient identification. PINC AI data combined with natural language processing (NLP) technology is well suited for uncovering details that can help identify which risk factors and clinical signs and symptoms are most predictive of subsequent disease development. Part two is building a qualitative ideation system with the healthcare system to help us design what that work looks like and identify pain points. Then, we can design the research project and see how well patients adhere to the care pathway. Finally, we find out if we improved the behaviors of the clinicians, and patients, publish those results, and scale those learnings across the rest of the Premier membership.

How have these innovative approaches concretely materialized?

A tangible example is a study we did in the New York market. We had a hypothesis that people were getting lung scans because of Covid-19. Based on the radiology report, many people could have incidental pulmonary nodules (IPN), which could be an indication of early-stage lung cancer. By applying NLP technology, we were able to identify patients with IPNs and flag them for intervention before potential lung cancer progression – with roughly 152,000 patients “caught” early. We then mapped those patients back to their healthcare systems and looked at more appropriate treatment options and ways to close gaps in care.

How do you see health equity trends evolving in the coming years?

Health equity is one of the hottest topics in the industry. We partnered with Henry Ford Innovations and launchedthe very first Health Equity Summit in collaboration with Henry Ford Health, eight life sciences organizations, and community and patient advocacy organizations in the Detroit market. As a result, we are about to embark on a significant project in breast cancer. We have linked our data to social determinants of a health database, so we can find transportation issues and food disparities for instance. Because Premier members represent 80% of healthcaresystems in the US, we can get to those disparate areas, collaborate with our members and work collectively to helpimprove care. We can get patients from all communities involved, check their disease states, and get them involved in studies.

What is your forecast for the partnership between life sciences and data firms?

The real-world data (RWD) and real-world evidence (RWE) market is expected to reach US$2.3 billion by 2026, up from US$1.2 billion in 2021. One and half years ago, we started with one asset: the PINC AI Healthcare Database (PHD). It contains charge master data and is one of the largest databases of its kind, capturing hospital charges from more than 1,263 sites across the US. With RWD/RWE becoming so crucial, we have continued to build further assets and can link the PHD to a claims database by a process called data tokenization, which allowed us to access payer data and reimbursements. We can now map the entire patient journey providing a longitudinal patient view. Real-world evidence is the future, and we want to be sure our data can help answer any questions that arisefor life sciences and all health organizations.

What is the main ambition in 2023?

We plan to continue growing our data, analytics, and research capabilities to develop sustainable solutions that can be scaled across the nation. Our current work with generating real-world evidence and designing and implementing diversified clinical trials will lead to additional opportunities. The topic of disparities in care will be critical going forward in 2023 – our technology and data capabilities help researchers and providers gain insights into health inequities and support strategies and solutions to advance health equity. Recently, Premier launched the PINC AI Health Equity Collaborative to bring together clinicians, health systems, life sciences, community and patient organizations to co-design solutions to help eliminate inequities across all areas of healthcare, together.