December 5, 2000 CHF Disease Management Reduces Hospital Admissions
PACIFICARE CHF DISEASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM, POWERED BY HEALTH HERO, SHOWS SIGNIFICANT REDUCTIONS IN HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS
Internet Enabled “Taking Charge of Your Heart Health” Program Shown to Improve the Health of Chronically Ill Patients while Reducing Healthcare Costs
New York, NY - December 5, 2000 - Health Hero Network, Inc. and PacifiCare Behavioral Health today announced at the eHealthcare World conference the results of a six-month outcomes analysis of PacifiCare’s disease management program powered by Health Hero. The PacifiCare “Taking Charge of Your Heart Health” program uses Health Hero technology to facilitate in-home daily monitoring, coaching, education, and reinforcement of self-care management skills to patients with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). Results of an independent outcomes analysis performed by Towers Perrin shows significant reductions in hospitalizations and emergency room visits for patients in the program.
The outcomes analysis showed inpatient hospitalizations were reduced by 50% and ER visits by 73%. Costs for hospitalizations and ER visits were reduced by 50% and total savings in claims paid of $5,271 per member per year were realized. CHF is the most common hospital admission in the United States with over 1.5 million hospital admissions per year. The estimated total cost of CHF in the US for health services and loss of productivity is over $22.5 billion per year.
“The PacifiCare ‘Taking Charge of Your Heart Health’ program yielded excellent results for the PacifiCare members in the program,” says Jerome Vaccaro, MD, Vice President and Corporate Medical Director of PacifiCare Behavioral Health. “We see this program, using the Health Hero system, as a platform for widespread use in self-management of a variety of conditions in a range of healthcare settings. We will be offering this and a range of similar programs to our health plan customers and other payers, since we see the real value in this approach - we save lives while keeping health care affordable.”
Health Hero provides its Health Hero® iCare Desktop™, and Health Buddy® appliance, to managed care organizations, HMOs, Hospitals/IDNs, Provider Networks and Disease Management companies seeking an efficient and effective solution to remotely monitor and manage patients with a variety of chronic conditions. Designed as an integrated, Internet-based solution, the Health Hero platform helps care managers identify problems sooner and facilitates patient education for self-management and behavioral modification.
“Our mission is to empower caregivers to better manage chronic conditions while enabling health plans to continuously improve the quality of their services to members,” said Steve Brown, CEO of Health Hero. “PacifiCare’s results show that leading health plans can achieve significant financial savings through better care management, and we look forward to widespread adoption of our technology in CHF and other chronic conditions.”
Mr. Brown is presenting the PacifiCare case study at the eHealthcare World conference in New York on December 5 as an invited speaker on a panel entitled “Killer Apps that Save Lives.”
PacifiCare Behavioral Health provides mental health, chemical dependency and employee assistance services to more than 3.5 million covered members and maintains a network of over 6,000 behavioral health care practitioners. Clients served include employers, school districts, union trusts, public sector agencies and health maintenance organizations. PacifiCare Behavioral Health is a wholly owned subsidiary of PacifiCare Health Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: PHSY), one of the nation’s leading managed care organizations.
About Health Hero Network
Health Hero Network, Inc., based in Mountain View, California, develops and markets the industry leading technology platform for remote patient communications, monitoring, and care management. The Health Hero platform includes a technology platform for remote patient monitoring and Internet-based care management and research application services. The Health Hero® solution consists of web-based tools for caregivers and the Health Buddy® appliance, iCare Desktop™, a web based patient management application for health care professionals, patient interfaces such as the Health Buddy appliance, a secure data center acting as the repository for application services and collected data, and content for over a dozen major chronic diseases. Health Hero Network licenses its platform to medical technology and services companies seeking a technology blueprint proven to enable better chronic care with lower costs to the healthcare system. Health Hero Network technology is protected by over 40 issued U.S. patents. For more information about Health Hero, visit www.healthhero.com.
