(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Premier, Inc. Nasdaq:PINC) has recognized St. Joseph Health's CARE Network with the 22nd annual Monroe E. Trout Premier Cares Award for its disease management and transitional care program. As part of the award, the CARE Network has received $100,000 from Premier. The Cares Award, which is sponsored by Premier and its member hospitals, recognizes exemplary efforts by not-for-profit community organizations to improve the health of populations in need. CARE Network is part of St. Joseph Health's Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, Calif. It is a community outreach program that helps patients who have recently been hospitalized or are at high risk for hospitalization.

"Every year our Cares Award program honors six organizations that are helping to care for a medically underserved population in their community," said Susan DeVore, Premier's president and CEO. "Through its remarkable services to help some of the most at-risk patients, this year's Cares Award recipient – CARE Network – is making a true impact on providing care transitions for patients and also is helping them manage chronic diseases while avoiding readmissions."

Representatives of CARE Network accepted the Cares Award during Premier's annual Governance Education Conference that took place January 27-29 in Miami Beach, Fla.

CARE Network is focused on those who live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, are uninsured or underinsured, and have uncontrolled medical conditions and complex socioeconomic issues. Patients are provided with medical case management to address various chronic health conditions and psychosocial support for behavioral health problems.

In its fiscal year 2013, CARE Network achieved a 72 percent decrease in emergency room visits and a 62 percent decrease in hospitalizations for the patients it served. Through an interdisciplinary approach, CARE Network helps some of the most vulnerable patients improve their quality of life and health outcomes while reducing overall healthcare costs.

A panel of national healthcare leaders selects the Premier Cares Award winner and five finalists, all of which receive cash awards for use in further improving their programs. The Cares Award program spotlights community-based healthcare initiatives and helps other organizations learn to replicate the best practice programs by featuring information about them on the Cares Award website.

Following are this year's award finalists that received $24,000 from Premier.

• Denali Center – Fairbanks, Alaska (affiliated with Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, Greater Fairbanks Community Hospital Foundation and Banner Health, a Premier member): A 90-bed comprehensive short- and long-term care facility that specializes in restorative nursing, geriatric care and long-term skilled nursing. As the sole provider of this level of service in an immense geographical area of 250,000 square miles, Denali Center's nurse practitioner serves as the clinician, educator, coordinator and liaison to residents, families and both nursing and medical staff. Denali Center developed pneumonia and UTI protocols that, in conjunction with the nurse practitioner model of care, have reduced ED visits by 60 percent, readmissions by 76 percent, and hospital admissions by 82 percent. (www.denali.org)
• Friends of Disabled Adults and Children (FODAC) – Stone Mountain, Ga.: A statewide and national provider of home healthcare equipment, mobility aids and daily living devices for people with disabilities and the newly injured. For every $1 given to FODAC, $10 of services are provided to clients. In FY 2012-2013, 5,026 items were provided to more than 2,700 children and adults with a mobility disability, including manual wheelchairs, power wheelchairs, walkers, bath aids, hospital beds and specialized pediatric home medical equipment. With these aids, individuals were given the ability to continue attending school, keep a job, attend doctor's appointments and church, prevent falls and become an active member of their community. (www.fodac.org)
• Moving Beyond Depression (Every Child Succeeds) – Cincinnati: A systemic program of In-Home Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (IH-CBT) developed by researchers at Every Child Succeeds and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. It is the only evidence-based treatment program specifically for mothers in home visiting programs and it has a proven record of success. To date, Moving Beyond Depression has trained 25 therapists who have treated 650 mothers with 79.7 percent no longer meeting criteria of major depressive disorders and substantial reductions in self-reported depressive symptoms. (www.movingbeyonddepression.org)
• Project Healthy Grandparents – Atlanta: A community service research project of the Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing and Health Professions at Georgia State University. Through monthly in-home visits, grandparents and their grandchildren receive health services, counseling and referrals for critical needs, including housing and food. Caregivers also assess developmental needs of children and help establish early intervention when needed. Project Healthy Grandparents is one of the few community-based programs in the country targeting grandparents raising their grandchildren. (www.gsu.edu/phg)
• Teen Parent Empowerment Program – Washington, D.C.: A 40-week intensive program for at-risk, pregnant young women ages 12 to 24 in Washington, D.C. The program is credited with helping young mothers have healthy pregnancies and excellent birth outcomes. Young moms are also provided academic support, healthcare education, counseling and pregnancy prevention services to improve their overall health and risk status. The Teen Parent Empowerment Program is part of the Healthy Babies Project. (www.healthybabiesproject.org)

About the Premier Cares Award
Premier has presented the Cares Award annually since 1991, when it was created by Dr. Monroe E. Trout, former CEO of American Healthcare Systems, one of Premier's heritage organizations. The program has provided more than $3 million to more than 100 organizations nationwide. The Cares Award winner receives a cash prize of $100,000, while five runners-up receive $24,000 each. The competition is open to not-for-profit organizations that have been in existence for more than two years, are providing creative solutions to health status improvement, can provide documentation of outcomes and impact on a specific population and have programs that can be replicated in other communities. www.premierinc.com/caresaward.

About Premier, Inc.
Premier, Inc. (Nasdaq:PINC) is a leading healthcare improvement company, uniting an alliance of more than 2,900 U.S. hospitals and nearly 100,000 other providers to transform healthcare. With integrated data and analytics, collaboratives, supply chain solutions and advisory and other services, Premier enables better care and outcomes at a lower cost. Premier, a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient, 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. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier is passionate about transforming American healthcare. Please visit Premier's news and investor sites on www.premierinc.com; as well as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Foursquare and Premier's blog for more information about the company.

Premier, Inc.

Premier, Inc.

Serving 1,700 hospitals and almost 45,000 other healthcare sites, Premier Inc. 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 the nation's largest healthcare purchasing network, 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. and Washington.

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