The Premier healthcare alliance has acquired Phase 2 Consulting, a provider of consulting services to hospitals and health systems.
Phase 2 Consulting, or P2C, is a division of St. Louis-based RehabCare Group, Inc. Premier's acquisition of the consulting firm will complement its own consulting arm, Premier Consulting Solutions.
Susan DeVore, Premier's incoming president and CEO, said PCS added more than 60 new customers in 2008, and the P2C acquisition would provide resources to help meet the growing demand for PCS' services.
"We believe that P2C's strengths complement Premier's capabilities and will help create new opportunities for knowledge-sharing among our alliance hospitals, as well as for the development of new products and services," said DeVore.
P2C offers expertise and consulting capabilities in revenue cycle improvement, including Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) readiness and charge capture, strategic planning and service line analysis. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, P2C has an additional office in Austin, Texas.
"The synergies created by this union allow Premier to enhance and expand its capabilities to assist its hospital members in all areas of performance improvement, from enhancing revenue to efficient management of key cost areas of labor and supplies to improving quality performance," said John Short, MD, RehabCare's president and CEO.
According to Premier, revenue growth for PCS is forecast to be more than 30 percent for FY2009, on top of 22 percent growth in the prior year.
"Consulting represents a significant growth area for Premier," said Wes Champion, senior vice president of PCS. "Given the issues hospitals are facing in the current economic environment, we expect demand to continue to grow, especially in the areas of transformational consulting, revenue cycle improvement, supply chain efficiency and labor management. The combination of our two organizations gives us deep expertise in the full spectrum of hospital operations and allows us to meet the growing needs of our hospitals."
Based in Charlotte, N.C., the Premier healthcare alliance is a group purchasing organization of more than 2,100 U.S. hospitals and 58,000-plus other healthcare sites.