Healthways Recognized as “Elite” Supplier of Well-Being Improvement Solutions

Designation Reflects Consistent Validity of Healthways’ Outcomes

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In an announcement earlier today, recognized industry pioneer and president of the Disease Management Purchasing Consortium (DMPC), Al Lewis, confirmed Healthways’ Elite Status as a supplier of health, wellness, prevention and chronic care programs.

“Achieving Elite Status reflects the consistent validity of Healthways’ outcomes and enables its customers to secure additional performance guarantees through the DMPC performance guarantee program,” Lewis said.

Commenting on the designation Ben R. Leedle, Jr., Healthways chief executive officer, said, “The only credible differentiator among organizations and solutions in our industry is the outcomes achieved. Unfortunately, our industry has long suffered from its inability to adopt a standard measurement methodology for customers to use to evaluate the results produced by the solutions they purchase. As a result of invalid value claims based on invalid methodologies, skeptics have attempted to homogenize all offerings, irrespective of an organization’s performance track record, pouncing on each failure as definitive while dismissing each success as an anecdotal artifact. The truth is that there are both failures and successes; not all programs are created or perform equally.

“We are pleased and proud to have the quality and performance of our solutions attested to by Al and the DMPC,” Leedle continued. “Healthways has an unequalled record of submitting the performance of our solutions to third-party validation and few, if any, organizations have the depth of knowledge and understanding that DMPC does with respect to valid methods of evaluating that performance.

“Over the years, our concern about this issue has led Healthways to partner with leading organizations to develop and make available on an industry-wide basis scientifically based, outcomes methodologies of unquestionable integrity. These include our collaboration with Johns Hopkins in the promulgation of the Hopkins Disease Management Outcomes Methodology and more recently our historic 25-year collaboration with the Gallup Organization to produce the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being IndexTM, which is fast becoming the ‘official statistic’ for establishing population baselines of well-being and measuring change created by the solutions we and others in the industry offer.

“Al and the DMPC have had a meaningful effect on the growth of the population management industry. We welcome his greater participation in helping us validate our outcomes, and we anticipate that his ‘stepping-up’ to the outcomes plate will have a further positive impact going forward.”

About the Disease Management Purchasing Consortium Inc.

DMPC membership includes most of the largest health plans in the country plus a large number of leading regional plans and provider-owned local plans, as well as two dozen self-insured employers, unions and state Medicaid programs. Measured by dollar volume, DMPC is the largest procurement and care outcomes measurement consulting firm in the country. DMPC founder and president Al Lewis is consistently named “Number 1” in Managed Healthcare Executive’s quadrennial listing of the top 25 executives in disease management. He co-authored the only book in print on disease management, The Next Generation of Disease Management. The DMPC Critical Outcomes Report Analysis exam has been passed by 200 people. 25 health plans, states and employers have achieved DMPC Savings Measurement Certification, which deems them for a “best in disease management” award from the Health Industries Research Companies in their Disease Management Industry Annual Reports. He has written on health reform for Newsweek and is also a regular op-ed contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle and frequent TV and radio commentator.

About Healthways

Healthways is the leading provider of specialized, comprehensive solutions to help millions of people maintain or improve their health and well-being and, as a result, reduce overall costs. Healthways’ solutions are designed to keep healthy people healthy, mitigate or eliminate lifestyle risk factors that can lead to disease and optimize care for those with chronic illness. Our proven, evidence-based programs provide highly specific and personalized interventions for each individual in a population, irrespective of age or health status, and are delivered to consumers by phone, mail, internet and face-to-face interactions, both domestically and internationally. Healthways also provides a national, fully accredited complementary and alternative Health Provider Network, offering convenient access to individuals who seek health services outside of, and in conjunction with, the traditional healthcare system. For more information, please visit http://www.healthways.com.



CONTACT:

Healthways
Allison London Brown, 615-614-5811

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  Tennessee

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Health  Hospitals  Other Health  General Health  Managed Care

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