Emergency Medicine Solutions
for Hospitals

ED Leadership

ED Leadership Image Premier places great value on leadership. Our physicians are encouraged to become leaders in the hospitals where they work, as well as within the medical community. In fact, Premier physicians have served as Chiefs of Staff in over twenty percent of our partner hospital facilities, and multiple physicians have served as hospital board members. In addition, our physicians occupy seats on the Medicine and Surgery/ICU QA Committees, the Trauma Multidisciplinary and QA Committee, Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, Credentials Committee, Medical Executive Committee, Ethics Committee and typically attend the general Medical Staff meetings as well as the Emergency Department Multidisciplinary and QA meetings. Premier also supports various Medical Staff Foundations and Hospital Outings. Our physicians are active in the American College of Emergency Physicians, both at the state and national level. They are also involved with State EMS Physician Regional Advisory Boards and serve as Medical Directors for EMS at the local and state levels. Premier’s physicians and EMS Coordinators actively participate with the local, regional, and state organizations focused on improving pre-hospital care.

Premier has also established a Leadership Development Program designed to provide opportunities for individuals interested in future leadership roles within the corporation. Quality leadership development is an integral component of healthy corporate building for the future. Appropriate allocation of resources toward our structured leadership development program is consistent with our corporate values. Annually, six to eight physicians participate within the program.

ED Management

ED Management Image Premier has demonstrated the ability to lead beyond the bottom line with a focus on clinical quality, service quality, and value to our communities. We accomplish this goal by partnering with our hospital clients to assist our sites in promoting improvements and adapting to change in the practice of medicine.

Premier evaluates and implements critical success factors for each site annually and establishes “Clinical Best Practices.” These goals are accomplished through various initiatives, including clinical guidelines, quality assessment/clinical improvement initiatives, monthly reporting including operations statistics with comparison to best practices, practice improvement tools including practice profiling, outcomes management, and diagnostic operational site visits. We believe these initiatives allow us to minimize the variability in our clinical practice and systematically improve Emergency Medicine care across our corporation.

Premier is a founding member of the Emergency Department Benchmarking Alliance (EDBA), which is a consortium of EDs focused on the study of ED operations, best practices, and system and process improvements. Premier fully supports and participates with EDBA, as well as the Emergency Department Practice Management Association (EDPMA). Such participation allows us to contribute to better patient care on a larger scale, while bringing information back to the company and our clients on “Best Practices.”

ED Education

ED Education Image The Education Division of Premier Health Care Services works with the medical directors of each of our client EDs to identify clinical, operational, and service areas in which our physician and PA providers would benefit most from education. These areas include, but are not limited to, PALS, ACLS, Emergency Procedures Skills course, Risk Management, Documentation, Customer Satisfaction, and newsletters on selected clinical topics.

In addition, we strive to meet the educational needs of ED nurse and pre-hospital providers in order to establish a consistent approach to the delivery of high quality emergency patient care. As a result, Premier offers specific education sessions for nursing and EMS, as well as our Customer Service and Satisfaction seminar, and an annual Client Conference for ED managers and hospital administrators. Educational classes are also provided by request from our clients to the nursing staff or other medical staff of the hospital.

We are the only ED physician group in Ohio certified as a CME Provider. This certification enables us to develop timely ongoing medical education for our physicians. We are able to develop and deliver physician education when our risk management analysis, peer review, and continuous quality improvement programs identify educational needs.

It is part of our Best Practices that physicians educate nurses annually and that both parties look at the Risk Management issues, so that everyone is educated at the same level.

ED Physician Quality

ED Physician Image Premier is dedicated to placing only the highest quality providers and has developed internal quality programs for its physician and physician extender personnel to ensure the highest quality service. One distinguishing and differentiating service that Premier provides to administrative and clinical personnel is our orientation. This day-long seminar for newly hired physicians discusses the positioning, mission, philosophy, culture, and key risk areas of Emergency Medicine. Orientation is required by all physicians and PA’s prior to eligibility for partnership.

In addition, Premier works with partner facilities to develop and implement quality programs that fulfill institutional needs and JCAHO criteria. Additionally, Premier has a separate team dedicated to the development of clinical guidelines and practice protocols. This group utilizes the multitude of existing documents and practices across our practice locations to produce uniform protocols. This breadth of knowledge produces the very best in clinical medicine.

ED Consulting

ED Physician Image Premier Health Care Services, Inc. has been an established provider of hospital emergency department, hospitalist, urgent care, occupational medicine, and correctional medicine staffing and management services since 1987. Being physician owned and managed, Premier is able to offer first-hand knowledge of the areas for which we provide consulting services. For more information, click here.

Customer Satisfaction

Premier has dedicated the personnel and resources to address the most important component of our practice: our patients. Patient surveys nationwide indicate lower levels of satisfaction with perceived timeliness of care, medical staff attitudes, and communications. Even lower ratings are associated with staff pleasantness, efforts to relieve discomfort/anxiety, and communications with patient and family. Premier’s Customer Satisfaction and Service Improvement Program targets these key areas.

The underlying Premier philosophy is that the patient encounter is not complete without patient/family communications. We have instituted a Code of Conduct that all physicians and extenders are required to sign. Premier’s code of conduct is, in a sense, our rules of engagement, and we highly encourage our physicians and extenders to treat the patients and families respectfully, putting a high emphasis on keeping the patient and their family informed of treatment and care.

Premier also recognizes that internal customer service is the key to successful department operations. Our customers are not limited to patients; we also serve the medical and nursing staff, ancillary services, administration, EMS, and referring hospitals. Premier offers our clients a three hour course that serves as a “charm school” for both physicians and hospital personnel who interact with Emergency Department patients. More than 75% of our sites have attended the course.

Some of the patient satisfaction processes that have already been implemented in Emergency Departments within our corporation include: greeter functions, bedside registration, bedside testing, throughput time management initiatives, physician profiling, physician documentation audits, bed management/trending, house bed management, competencies, customer service Training, work load studies, and benchmarking. We actively support and participate in surveying processes to improve quality indicators and to identify areas in need of attention.

Our Customer Service Training Program has received national recognition in American Health Associates Consultants’ ED Management publication and its components have been presented at several regional and national conferences such as Ohio Hospital Association’s Joint Educational Summit and EDPMA’s Emergency Department Management Summit.

Physician Billing

ED Billing Image MBI Solutions, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Premier) provides comprehensive billing services and practice management information for Premier. MBI has been providing medical coding and billing services to emergency physicians since 1984. The systems and processes MBI uses are specifically tailored to meet the unique needs of Emergency Medicine. MBI personnel have superior skills and knowledge in the areas of emergency services coding and billing. The integrated information systems platform MBI uses combines software, hardware, and customized programming to support the practice management needs of Premier and its clients. Various reports are available, such as collection ratios by payer, managed care reimbursement, professional fee acuity by provider, insurance denial, and account aging summaries.

Community and EMS Services

EMS Image Since 1987, Premier Health Care Services has long recognized the need to remain dedicated to the communities we serve. We encourage our physicians to live in the community in which they work, and we appreciate and value the role of the Emergency Department physician as a good citizen in the community and encourage active participation within their neighborhoods. We have several physicians involved in church, school, athletic, and Boy and Girl Scout activities, as well as many who serve on medical missions. Each physician takes their role very seriously in the hospital and community they serve.

Premier is committed to developing and maintaining an organized approach to the EMS providers in the communities served by our hospitals. These providers are crucial customers to the ED. Because of this belief, many of our physicians are leaders of their community EMS units. Our Medical Directors are expected to serve as EMS Medical Directors in the areas that we provide service. Our members have served on the national ACEP EMS committee and EMS section and Ohio ACEP EMS committee.

Premier has been honored to be a major sponsor of the Ohio Star of Life awards for many years. Additionally, David Keseg, MD, has served as the Medical Director of Columbus Fire EMS for 20 years. Our physicians are also involved with Ohio’s State EMS Physician Regional Advisory Boards. Our physicians and EMS Coordinators actively participate with the local, regional, and state organizations focused on improving pre-hospital care. This unique perspective into the operations of EMS units enables Premier to offer EMS billing services as a separate service line to these providers. In today’s difficult reimbursement environment, the resources of MBI Solutions and opportunity for exclusive coordination to pursue both physician and EMS accounts produces enhanced collections.