Eighteen hospital members of the Premier healthcare alliance have been cited for achieving superior supply expense performance by winning the largest healthcare purchasing network's first-ever Supply Chain Excellence Awards.

The awards were presented last tuesday in ceremonies at Premier's Annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Fla. Nine other members received honorable mention.

"Achieving and sustaining strong supply chain performance is essential to a healthy bottom line to ensure that the health needs of our communities are met. Therefore, safely reducing supply expense is the definitive focus of Premier and our members," said Mike Alkire, president of Premier Purchasing Partners, LP. "We are pleased to recognize the significant accomplishments of these member hospitals. Their efforts lead the way for our more than 1,500 member hospitals."

According to Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, all of the winners' supply expense performance is measured by Premier's SupplyFocus(TM), 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-(CMI)-based peer grouping methodology to ensure that organizations of diverse sizes and complexity were considered equally.