Aetna Wins Innovation and Excellence Award for Integrated Diabetes Program
Posted on: Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 12:00 CST
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) recognized Aetna (NYSE:AET) yesterday with the 2006 Large/Affiliated Innovation and Excellence Award: Chronic Care for the company's integrated approach to helping members with diabetes manage their condition. The award was given to Aetna this week at the AHIP Foundation's Innovation and Excellence Awards Dinner at the 2006 National Policy Forum in Washington, D.C.
"This award recognizes the strong foundation of Aetna's integrated approach to helping our members achieve optimal health," said Charles M. Cutler, M.D., head of National Quality Management at Aetna. "Using feedback gained during focus groups with consumers and care providers, we have successfully integrated services to address our members' educational, psychosocial and cultural needs. This approach enables us to support each member as a whole person with overlapping and connected health needs, rather than focusing solely on their chronic condition. Further, it reflects our commitment to offering members with diabetes a range of innovative outreach and programs."
Approximately 6 percent of Aetna's HMO-based members, or about 180,000 members with diabetes, benefit from these award-winning outreach services, receiving consistent reinforcement in their diabetes self-management efforts. Components of Aetna's integrated approach to helping support members with diabetes include:
-- Member Education and Support Helping members understand their condition, and the importance of monitoring their health and following their doctor-prescribed treatment plan is a core component of our integrated diabetes management services, and includes nurse outreach and support through our disease and case management programs, direct mail reminders, education and self-management tools, newsletters and web-based education and tools. -- Psychosocial Support Behavioral health issues can complicate an underlying medical condition and lead to ineffective self-management. Members in our diabetes disease management program are routinely screened for depression and referred to our Medical/Psychiatric Case Management program as needed for support with co-morbid depression, which frequently occurs among people living with a chronic condition like diabetes. -- Cultural Diversity Recognizing that the identical diabetes management plan will not suit all people, Aetna provides culturally sensitive materials to members and participating physicians to help them understand the disease and develop a treatment plan they can stick with for life. The Aetna Diabetes Care Kit for physicians treating Hispanic or Latino patients with diabetes received an eValue8(TM) Innovation Award from the National Business Coalition on Health last fall. -- Physician Education and Support According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 14.6 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes, and 6.2 million Americans suffer from undiagnosed diabetes. Health plans can play a key role in supporting physicians in caring for their diabetic patients. Aetna provides direct mail patient educational materials and reminders, office tracking tools and rosters of Aetna members potentially in need of service. -- Community Collaboration Aetna works with local diabetes coalitions to promote compliance with recommended American Diabetes Association guidelines. In the Maryland/Washington D.C./Virginia market, Aetna implemented a pilot with the Network to Improve Community Health (NICH) by providing participating physician offices and lab draw stations with the NICH Patient Guidelines for Diabetes Care brochure to educate their patients."It's such a great honor to have our efforts recognized externally against more than 35 other judged entries," said Judy Langley, health care quality manager for National Quality Management (NQM). "It's very rewarding to see that our integrated programs proved to be more innovative and differentiated in this competition."
Aetna's integrated programs have led to demonstrated success, as measured by the HEDIS(R) Comprehensive Diabetes Care measure components, Aetna's annual physician and office manager surveys, member and physician/office manager focus groups and the Med/Psych SF12(R) Health Survey. Aetna significantly improved HEDIS rates of cholesterol (LDL) control (less than 100) by 14.2 percent, nephropathy screening by 12.9 percent and the SF12 Mental Health Component by 44.9 percent.
The AHIP Foundation is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), educational, scientific, and research arm of AHIP. It strives to create, support, and enhance programs throughout the health plan industry that improve quality, effectiveness, and value in health care through research, education, information sharing, and other activities which reward exemplary practices by individuals and organizations.
Aetna is one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits companies, serving approximately 27.9 million unique members with information and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their health care. Aetna offers a broad range of traditional and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmacy, dental, behavioral health, group life, long-term care and disability plans, and medical management capabilities. Our customers include employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans and government-sponsored plans. www.aetna.com
Source: Business Wire
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