12 July 2019Analysis

Captive owners collaborate to reduce preventable maternal and neonatal deaths


Ten hospitals that between them own the American Excess Insurance Exchange (AEIX) captive are working with Premier, a healthcare improvement company, on a perinatal collaborative, designed to reach zero preventable maternal and neonatal harm and deaths.

AEIX is reciprocal risk retention group, a captive professional liability insurance company that is also managed by Premier.

Over the next two years, hospitals in Premier’s perinatal collaborative will design, test and adopt evidence-based improvement strategies that can be replicated, standardised and scaled nationally.

Premier experts will be paired on-site with participants to establish multidisciplinary, data-driven improvement initiatives to transform perinatal care design. This includes leveraging integrated technology and a comprehensive database that benchmarks against 1.2 million annual births to assess, measure and monitor each participant’s culture of safety and its impact on quality and cost, including liability expenses.

It will also analyse population-focused outcomes measures, provide quarterly results on targeted perinatal services and deliver an annual weighted performance improvement roadmap.

Barclay Berdan, CEO of Texas Health Resources and chairperson of the AEIX board of directors, said: “This group’s unique, combined expertise is critical in providing the leading pathway for managing risk and improving perinatal safety.”

Susan DeVore, Premier CEO, added: “We know firsthand what can be accomplished by acting as a convener to facilitate collaboration, data sharing and the development of scalable solutions. Our goal is to measurably close the gap between the evidence and what is practiced by testing and adopting new delivery models that elevate the quality, safety and cost of perinatal care.”

The ten hospitals involved, that also own AEIX, are: Baptist Health in Lexington, KY; Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA; Franklin Woods Community Hospital in Johnson City, TN; MemorialCare Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Long Beach, CA; PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield, OR; Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, NM; Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, VA; Summa Health in Akron, OH; Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, TX; and West Virginia University Medicine – Camden Clark Medical Center in Parkersburg, WV.