Interview with the COO: Premier, Inc. (NASDAQ:PINC)

Technology >> CEO Interviews >> October 23, 2015

Michael J. Alkire is Chief Operating Officer — COO — for Premier, Inc., a health care performance improvement alliance helping hospitals and health systems provide better patient care while reducing costs. As COO, Mr. Alkire leads the continued integration of Premier’s clinical, financial, supply chain and operational performance improvement offerings helping member hospitals and health systems provide higher-quality care at a better cost. He oversees Premier’s quality, safety, labor and supply chain technology apps and data-driven collaboratives allowing alliance members to make decisions based on a combination of health care information. These performance improvement offerings access Premier’s comparative database, one of the nation’s largest outcomes databases. This data has been used by the Food and Drug Administration for drug surveillance and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to evaluate next-generation payment models. Mr. Alkire also led Premier’s efforts to address public health and safety issues from the nationwide drug-shortage problem, testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives regarding Premier research on shortages and gray-market price gouging. This work contributed to the President and Congress taking action to investigate and correct the problem, resulting in two pieces of bipartisan legislation. Prior to serving as COO, Mr. Alkire was President of Premier Purchasing Partners, which offers group purchasing, supply chain and resource utilization services to hospitals and health systems. Premier remains among the top group purchasing organizations in the industry as the value of supplies purchased through its contracts has increased to $44 billion. Upon joining Premier in late 2003, Mr. Alkire worked closely with the Purchasing Partners team to develop and implement a three-year transformation plan designed to dramatically increase returns to the alliance’s shareholders while building stronger relationships with members and suppliers. Mr. Alkire is a member of the East Coast Healthcare Executive Summit, and a past board member of GHX and the Healthcare Supply Chain Association. In 2015, Mr. Alkire won the Gold Stevie Award for Executive of the Year, and in 2014, he was recognized as a Gold Award Winner for COO of the Year by the Golden Bridge Awards. He has more than 20 years of experience in running business operations and business development organizations at Deloitte & Touche and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Before joining Premier, he served in a number of leadership roles at Cap Gemini, including North American responsibilities for supply chain and high-tech manufacturing. Mr. Alkire graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana State University and a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University. Profile

TWST: Give us some history of Premier.

Mr. Alkire: Premier was formed back in 1996 when three organizations came together. Together, these organizations had supply

Join for free to read a longer excerpt or purchase this article

Interview with the COO: Premier, Inc. (NASDAQ:PINC)

Top Company Interviews

CEO INTERVIEWS

SECTOR ROUNDTABLES

MONEY MANAGER INTERVIEWS

ANALYST INTERVIEWS

Interview with the COO: Premier, Inc. (NASDAQ:PINC)

Top Company Interviews

Register for a Free Account to gain greater access to The Wall Street Transcript right now

CEO INTERVIEWS

SECTOR ROUNDTABLES

MONEY MANAGER INTERVIEWS

ANALYST INTERVIEWS