Monday, February 13 2006
Providence Medical Group Releases Results of Diabetes Study
Kryptiq’s CareManager™ Diabetes Module Leads to a 58 percent Improvement in the Number of Patients with Diabetes who Achieved Control of their Cholesterol and Blood Pressure Levels
SAN DIEGO, Ca. – February 13, 2006 – Today at the annual HIMSS conference, Providence Medical Group (PMG) released the results of a comprehensive one-year study of Kryptiq’s CareManager Diabetes Module that demonstrated a 58 percent increase in number of diabetic patients who achieved control of their cholesterol and blood pressure levels. These improvements significantly reduced the risk of heart disease across a diabetic patient population of over 6,000. PMG also documented a 250 percent increase in foot screenings, helping to stem the rate of later amputations. These improvements were the result of increased physician interventions prompted by the CareManager Diabetes Module.
CareManager presents providers with a dashboard of the health status of their patient population connected to patient information already stored in the organization’s electronic health record (EHR) to enable proactive disease management. Each of CareManager’s specific disease modules allows physicians to identify at-risk patients, proactively intervene with appropriate treatments, and receive real-time performance feedback relative to quality benchmarks.
Chronic diseases like diabetes are complex and difficult to control because of the intense level of self-management required of patients and the risk of complications. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in some states today, as many as 1 in 8 adults have diabetes. Each of these individuals is facing the possibility of further complications due to this disease. For example, again according to the CDC, heart disease rates are 2 to 4 times higher in patients with diabetes and 60% of nontraumatic lower-limb amputations in the US occur in people with diabetes. It has been clinically proven that appropriate physician interventions significantly improve diabetes management and the risks of later complications. Yet, due to the lack of effective tools, physicians could traditionally only intervene when the patient is in the office, and frequently missed the opportunities for appropriate interventions.
“CareManager has fundamentally changed the way we think about treating chronic diseases,” said Dr. Joe Siemienczuk, chief medical officer at Providence Medical Group. “The results of this case study exceeded all of our expectations and counters national trends which show that the vast majority of patients with diabetes are not receiving effective care. These improvements have established that physicians can significantly raise the level of care simply by investing in appropriate technology. In a time when chronic conditions are threatening to strangle our nation’s healthcare systems, CareManager has presented a viable and cost effective solution for managing this population.”
CareManager’s Diabetes Module’s integration with GE’s Centricity® Physician Office Electronic Medical Record, allowed PMG to utilize the application across twelve practices in the greater Portland area. The program was initiated after PMG saw that their EHR investment alone was not improving chronic patient outcomes. With the implementation of CareManager, PMG not only improved patient care, but also experienced unexpected positive financial returns. While using CareManager to ensure patients received the care they needed when they needed it, PMG generated more than $4,000 of additional revenue per physician in the first year of use, without hiring any additional staff.
The need for effective chronic care management tools continues to increase throughout the country. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), diabetes costs from medical bills, disability payments and lost workdays exceeded $132 billion in 2002. CareManager helps reduce these long term costs by shifting care from episodic individual treatment to proactive population-based chronic care management.
“While EHRs have become more sophisticated in compiling and storing data, their value will be demonstrated from putting the right information in front of the right decision-maker at the right time,” said Peter Basch, medical director for eHealth at MedStar Health and a member of the JCAHO healthcare IT advisory Panel. “CareManager is unmatched in its ability to provide this information to providers.”
In addition to diabetes, CareManager modules are also available for coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke prevention. Modules for smoking cessation, osteoporosis, and cancer screening will be available in the second half of the 2006.
About Kryptiq
Kryptiq is the leading provider of interoperability and workflow connectivity solutions for healthcare. Kryptiq streamlines healthcare communications among patients, providers, pharmacies and payers with secure messaging, electronic prescribing, disease management, and contract management technologies. By integrating these solutions with existing systems and applications, Kryptiq enables the trusted transport of health information where and when it is needed. Kryptiq’s fast-growing customer base includes many of the nation’s top 100 integrated health networks, spans 48 states plus Washington, D.C., and includes well-known providers and payers such as Providence Health System, Capital Region Healthcare, MeritCare Health System, Eastern Maine Healthcare, BlueCross and BlueShield of Minnesota, and Northwest Permanente. For more information on the company, visit www.kryptiq.com.
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Lisa MacKenzie
MacKenzie Marketing Group
(503) 225-0725
