Henry Ford Health System Presents Favorable Experiences Implementing Health Hero(R) Network’s Health Buddy(R) System for Heart Failure Patients at the American Telemedicine Association Meeting

Henry Ford Implements Health Buddy System Within Entire Integrated Manage Care Organization With Success
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- 04/20/2005 -- Health Hero Network, Inc. medical director Julie Cheitlin Cherry and Jonathan Ehrman, Ph.D., Henry Ford Health System’s Associate Program Director, Preventive Cardiology Program Director, spoke at the tenth annual American Telemedicine Association meeting in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Ehrman and Ms. Cherry presented early outcomes and implementation information from a heart failure study conducted within the Henry Ford Health System. The study demonstrated high patient satisfaction (92%), and compliance (88%) and several patient case studies showing a potential decrease in ER visits and hospitalizations.

Henry Ford Health System, located in southeastern Michigan, implemented a telemedicine disease management program for heart failure patients utilizing the Health Hero Network Health Buddy® System to manage their growing population of heart failure patients. The goals of the program are to provide efficient and effective quality of care, impact patient empowerment and knowledge and decrease emergency and hospital admissions. The deployments of the Health Buddy system was utilized in three areas of the organization, located in the Henry Ford Health Maintenance Organization’s Health Alliance Plan (HAP) and Medical Group. These include HAPs disease management program and the medical groups advanced and general heart failure clinics and these programs included heart failure patients that were pre heart transplant as well as patients that had a lower severity of the disease. Over 200 patients have been enrolled into these programs since April of 2004.

“Henry Ford Health System is committed to improving the health and well being of our members. The Health Buddy system has allowed us to proactively monitor and care for the growing needs of our heart failure patients,” said Dr. Ehrman, Associate Program Director, Preventive Cardiology at Henry Ford. “Our leadership has embraced this initiative and has plans to continue deployment of the system in other disease areas. The clinical staff have embraced the addition of technology into their telemedicine program and have seen how daily connection with their patients allows for early intervention before a problem becomes acute.”

The study utilized the Health Buddy system that coaches and monitors patients at home and sends timely health status information to health care providers for review on the web. By simply pressing one of the blue buttons on the Health Buddy appliance, patients automatically send timely health status information to their care providers. The health care provider is then able to use Health Hero Network’s web-based application to quickly assess the patient’s condition and intervene if there is cause for concern.

A complete clinical analysis of the data is currently being prepared for abstract submission for the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in November.

Demonstrating Henry Ford’s commitment to using the Health Buddy system, they are also conducting a weight management study. This study is currently recruiting participants in the South Eastern Michigan area.

About Health Hero Network

Health Hero Network develops and markets the Health Buddy® system for health improvement. The Health Buddy system serves as the interface between patients at home and care providers, facilitating patient education and monitoring of chronic conditions. The system includes monitoring technologies, clinical information databases, Internet-enabled decision support tools, health management programs and content development tools. Through increased communication, behavior modification, and prevention, the Health Buddy system improves the quality of care. Based in Mountain View, California, Health Hero Network’s systems are protected by over 55 issued US patents. http://www.healthhero.com

Contact Information

Kathy Goodman

Marketing & Communications Specialist

Health Hero Network, Inc.

Contact via E-mail