HealthMedia Closes 2006 in High Growth Mode
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ — HealthMedia, Inc. the global leader in online delivery of behavior change interventions for health and wellness, disease management, medication compliance and behavioral health announces an 88% growth in healthcare revenue and a 50% increase in staff during 2006.
New Clients
HealthMedia added new health plans and employers to its client roster, providing access to HealthMedia’s behavior change interventions to an additional 1.5 million people, and also expanded business with existing clients. Through its Direct Sales efforts, HealthMedia won engagements with Aetna Behavioral Health, Biogen Idec, Boehringer Ingelheim, Cleveland Clinic, Education Testing Services, GSK, Highmark, McKesson, Mellon Bank, Principle Financial, and Readers Digest.
Through its Partner Relationships, HealthMedia acquired several new clients including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arkansas, CentraHealth, City of Norfolk, Humana, Schering-Plough, State of Arkansas, State of Louisiana, State of Mississippi, Town of West Hartford, Tuscon Medical Center, Xerox, and Yazaki North America. HealthMedia also significantly expanded its core offerings to Health Dialog with the integration of HealthMedia’s entire suite of programs to the Dialog Center providing access to an additional 40 employers.
New Products and Remarkable Outcomes
HealthMedia’s investment in new disease management products expanded its reach to over 20 million lives. In November, HealthMedia announced the commercial availability of HealthMedia(R) Care(TM) for Diabetes, an online diabetes self-management program that addresses a broad scope of issues that individuals with diabetes face every day including diabetes education, obesity, poor nutrition, stress, depression, sleep disorders and medication compliance.
Care(TM) for Diabetes complements HealthMedia’s existing disease management programming including HealthMedia(R) Care(TM) for Your Health, designed for anyone diagnosed with a disease or condition. Care(TM) for Your Health helps patients deal with issues such as doctor-patient communication, medication compliance, acceptance of their disease or condition, and social support.
HealthMedia’s growth objectives were also bolstered through the acquisition of MySelfHelp.com, the nation’s leading provider of online behavioral health interventions for issues such as depression, insomnia, eating disorders, guilt, grief and self-esteem. The MySelfHelp product line will round out HealthMedia’s existing behavioral health programs, which include programs for addiction and a behavioral health risk assessment. HealthMedia will continue to serve MySelfHelp’s retail customers as it prepares to roll out commercial versions of the programs to its business-to- business client base.
In September, HealthMedia also announced the results it achieved through the integration of the clinically proven Work Productivity and Activity Impairment (WPAI) assessment into its program assessments. The WPAI measures missed work hours and work productivity affected due to health issues and calculates a percentage reduction in productivity, which can be presented in financial terms.
HealthMedia’s disease management programs alone projected a 4% improvement in productivity after 6 months and a cost savings of $760,000 a year for an assumed population of 10,000 employees with an average loaded salary of $50,000 and modest program participation. HealthMedia has leveraged these outcomes to build a productivity dashboard to enable clients to customize their own outcomes using their own outcomes and population information.
Awards and Recognition
Throughout 2006, HealthMedia programs won numerous awards in the area of wellness and disease management. These include:
* The “Freddie” Award given in November at MediMedia’s 32nd Annual International Health and Medical Media awards for the video series “Learn to Live with Asthma: A Patient Support Project”. The series profiles a group of friends as they support each other through the challenges they face in their every day life while coping with asthma. * Also in November, My.HealthMedia.com won two platinum e-Healthcare Leadership awards at the Strategic Health Care Communications’ 10th Annual Healthcare Internet Conference. * My.HealthMedia.com won in the categories of Best Health/Healthcare Content and Best Overall Internet Site. My.Healthmedia.com also earned a Bronze World Wide Web Health Award for Best Health Promotion/Disease & Injury Prevention Information. * Earlier this year, HealthMedia programs won a 2006 Innovations in Healthcare Award(SM) from the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Association.
“We feel great about how we exited 2006, but we are not complacent,” says HealthMedia CEO and President Ted Dacko. “The marketplace is telling us that the demand for scaleable, high quality behavior change interventions to reach consumers anywhere along the healthcare continuum is expected to increase significantly. High quality interventions need to have outcomes with respect to both medical utilization and improved productivity, but these outcomes cannot be achieved by simple web content or be scalable through telephonic delivery alone. By integrating a sophisticated web technology, which can duplicate the quality of a nurse counselor, with proven behavior change science and clinical guidelines, HealthMedia’s programs offer both the scalability and the outcomes that health plans and employers are demanding.”
Looking ahead, Dacko is optimistic. “HealthMedia is well positioned to accelerate our growth in 2007. We have developed ambitious plans for new products, new promotional strategies including a new innovative recruiting program, and enhanced reporting and productivity tools; all while continuing to reinvest in the popular programs we currently provide. Stay tuned to HealthMedia!”
About HealthMedia, Inc.
HealthMedia, Inc. is the global leader in online delivery of behavior change interventions. HealthMedia’s proven outcomes increase compliance, reduce medical utilization, and increase productivity in order to improve profitability for health plans, employers, pharmaceutical companies, and behavioral health organizations. With its powerful combination of proven behavior science, sophisticated technology and creative marketing, HealthMedia delivers individually tailored self-management interventions for health and wellness, disease management, medication compliance, and behavioral health. Notable clients include Kaiser Permanente, UPS, Cleveland Clinic, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett Packard, GSK, and eight Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations across the United States. HealthMedia partners include APS Healthcare, Corphealth, Health Dialog, and SHPS. For more information, visit http://www.healthmedia.com/.”
HealthMedia, Inc.
CONTACT: Sally Hart Petersen of HealthMedia, Inc., +1-734-623-5485
Web site: http://www.healthmedia.com/http://www.myselfhelp.com/