<0> BCBSVT Facilitates Diabetes Patient Engagement System℠ -- Helps Physicians Manage Complex Costly Chronic Conditions Through Improved Patient Engagement to Improve Health and Reduce Costs </0>
Patient Engagement Systems® Agreement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont to Benefit Physicians’ Care Management of Diabetics; Signals Important Commitment to Patients with Chronic Care Needs
<0> Frank Public Relations WorldwidePeggy C. Frank, MBA818-735-3591 </0>
Patient Engagement Systems® (PES), a fast growing healthcare analytics company dedicated to chronic care management and patient engagement, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont (BCBSVT) today announced a one-year pilot program is underway at BCBSVT to help physicians effectively identify, manage and improve the health of diabetics by implementing personalized patient engagement and decision support tools that provide treatment recommendations based on nationally recognized clinical guidelines utilizing PES’ Diabetes Patient Engagement System℠ (DPES) developed with support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Stanley Goldstein, President and CEO of Patient Engagement Systems, said, “We are delighted to be partnering with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont since they share our common goal of effectively engaging patients and providers to improve care. We are eager to help BCBSVT with their unwavering commitment to improve the health of their members with diabetes and support the providers that champion their care.”
BCBSVT is using PES’s proprietary Diabetes Patient Engagement System (DPES) that was innovated by physicians driven to create personalized clinical data tools to enable the primary care provider to effectively manage and improve the quality of care for complex and costly chronic conditions by providing a platform to better engage with their patients. The Diabetes Patient Engagement System was developed at the University of VT through a five-year funded study by the National Institutes of Health that verified care process improvements and cost reductions.
Goldstein added, “Patient Engagement Systems’ partnership to provide BCBSVT physicians with the easy to use yet sophisticated tools that will enable them to more easily identify, manage and engage with their patients with diabetes underscores BCBCVT’s stellar national reputation for spearheading innovation that demonstrates their commitment to exceeding expectations.”
Robert Wheeler, MD, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont, said, “We are pleased to facilitate implementation of this system in Vermont medical practices. This approach embeds sophisticated automation in clinical settings to increase individualized communication between the clinic and the patient outside of the visits for care. Focusing on timely, actionable, patient-specific information helps increase motivation for self-care and engages the patient to follow physician recommendations.”
Dr. Wheeler added, “During development, this set of tools clearly improved outcomes of care and reduced reliance on hospitals and emergency services. The DPES tools complement and expand on ‘panel management’ capabilities developed under the Vermont Blueprint for Health. BCBSVT supports transitioning care management capabilities into practice settings as an important strategy for improving results across the entire population.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), diabetes has both human and financial costs and is a rapidly accelerating epidemic in the US with more than 1.6 million new cases diagnosed annually.
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Patient Engagement Systems® (PES) is a nationally recognized healthcare services company dedicated to supporting its customers’ goal of helping people with chronic diseases, specifically diabetes and chronic kidney disease, improve their health, and reduce costs related to inpatient admissions and ER visits. PES provides medical groups, IPAs, health plans, health systems and government agencies with automated patient engagement tools, timely clinical decision support and the analytics needed to better identify, manage and monitor these high cost patients. PES’s signature platforms include the Diabetes Patient Engagement System℠, a chronic care management and patient engagement technology developed and tested in a five-year National Institutes of Health funded study that verified care process improvements and cost reductions and the Chronic Kidney Disease Patient Engagement System℠. PES is an IBM Global Entrepreneurial Partner, and is a 2011 URAC Bronze Awardee for Best Practice in Health Care Consumer Empowerment and Protection.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont is the state’s oldest and largest health insurer, providing coverage for about 190,000 Vermonters. It employs about 340 Vermonters at its headquarters in Berlin, branch office in South Burlington and its recently opened satellite office – the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont Information and Wellness Center also in South Burlington. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont offers both group and individual health plans. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont is an independent corporation operating under a license with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans.