Agreement includes licensing of health risk assessment tools and analytics,
research collaboration; Expanded capabilities to also be available through
CareAllies and CIGNA Behavioral Health
BLOOMFIELD, Conn., Dec. 12, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CIGNA
HealthCare today announced it has entered into a long-term agreement with
the University of Michigan, which gives it access to intellectual property
developed by Professor D. W. Edington, Ph.D., and the researchers within
the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center (UM-HMRC), a
unit within the University of Michigan's Division of Kinesiology, that he
directs. The agreement includes an exclusive license within the United
States for the use of sophisticated analytics that help consumers identify
and address health risks and help employers develop worksite health and
wellness programs. Under the agreement, CIGNA HealthCare will also license
the UM-HMRC health risk assessment questionnaire and have access to
additional employer reporting capabilities through UM-HMRC.
The organizations have also entered into an initial and renewable five-
year research agreement to jointly collaborate on research related to
health and wellness promotion. Expected areas for research collaboration
include measuring the impact of health advocacy programs on clinical
outcomes and health care costs, and modeling the return on investment of
these programs.
The analytic capabilities, and the questionnaire used to gather data,
have been developed under the leadership of Dr. Edington, based on his over
30 years of research and experience in health services research. Dr.
Edington's teaching, research and consulting focuses on the relationship
between behaviorally oriented health risks and their clinical and economic
consequences for individuals and organizations. He and his team are
specifically focused on how individual health promotion, worksite wellness
activities and programs impact health care economics, productivity and
human resource development.
Through the affiliation with UM-HMRC and other recent initiatives, such
as the expansion of health coaching programs, CIGNA HealthCare is
significantly expanding its focus on health and wellness programs and
consumer engagement capabilities. These programs are designed to help
consumers avoid health care problems and their associated costs and impacts
on quality of life.
CIGNA HealthCare President David Cordani said that CIGNA and UM-HMRC
share a similar philosophy - to encourage consumer engagement in health
care and to encourage the adoption of worksite initiatives to improve
health as an effective business strategy.
"We view the health of employees as directly connected to the health of
companies," Cordani said. "Through our consumer engagement and outreach
initiatives, we positively impact the health and well-being of individuals
and further control costs and improve productivity for plan sponsors. This
new relationship will enable CIGNA HealthCare to significantly enhance our
capabilities in these areas and to lead the industry in understanding and
implementing effective strategies to engage consumers in managing their
health."
Robin Rasor, Director of Licensing within U-M's Office of Technology
Transfer, calls the agreement mutually beneficial. "This is the kind of
affiliation we hope for," says Rasor. "Over the years, Dee and his team
developed a productive suite of tools, and with CIGNA's capabilities the
technology will now reach the public on a large scale."
Under the agreement, CIGNA HealthCare will have exclusive, licensed use
within the United States of the UM-HMRC's Trend Management System and Risk
Clustering algorithms. From data reported through responses to a health
risk assessment questionnaire, the system identifies an individual's risks,
assigns strategies and recommendations for the optimal level of services
and interventions needed to support risk reduction or risk avoidance, and
forecasts costs and health status. Importantly, the system provides
methodology to target and prioritize outreach to consumers based on the
health risks that are most likely to influence their overall health status
and health care utilization in the next one to three years.
"Preventing health care problems before they impact employee
productivity and health care costs is the focus of our employee health and
wellness programs," said Andrew Scibelli, Manager, Health Management
Program, Florida Power & Light Company, a member of the University of
Michigan Corporate Consortium and a company that offers CIGNA HealthCare
programs to employees. "But these programs can't be successful if employees
don't use them. Key to the success of our efforts is having reliable data
and a thorough and thoughtful analysis of that data. Both guide us to the
right programs and incentives that encourage employee adoption of the
health and wellness resources we provide."
CIGNA HealthCare will also gain a non-exclusive license for the UM-HMRC
health risk assessment questionnaire, created as a result of over 25 years
of development and data analysis. The health risk assessment has been used
extensively in research, the results of which have been documented in more
than 100 research studies that have been published in peer-reviewed
scientific journals.
Also as part of the agreement, CIGNA HealthCare will have access to
additional reporting capabilities that provide aggregate data to employers
to help them understand their workforce population's risk profile and the
impact of this profile on current and future health care costs and the
prevalence and cost of disability and lost productivity. These reports can
assist employers in making decisions about how to best structure their
health and wellness programs to meet employee health needs and company
productivity goals.
About CIGNA HealthCare
CIGNA HealthCare, headquartered in Bloomfield, CT, provides medical
benefits plans, dental coverage, behavioral health coverage, pharmacy
benefits and products and services that integrate and analyze information
to support consumerism and health advocacy. "CIGNA" or "CIGNA HealthCare"
refers to various operating subsidiaries of CIGNA Corporation (NYSE: CI).
Products and services are provided by these operating subsidiaries, and not
by CIGNA Corporation.
About the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center
UM-Health Management Research Center (UM-HMRC) is a world-wide leader
in studying how health choices influence total health and productivity,
quality of life, vitality and health care economics throughout a lifetime.
SOURCE CIGNA HealthCare
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Related links:
http://www.cigna.com
http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/165050.html /
CONTACT:
Amy Turkington, CIGNA HealthCare,
+1-860-226-3489, amy.turkington@cigna.com; or Mark Maynard,
University of Michigan, +1-734-763-0615, mmaynard@umich.edu
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