News

HealthMedia, Inc. Selects Eliza Corporation for Phone-based Outreach as Key Component of Engagement Strategy

Eliza Corporation's Interactive, Speech-enabled Technology Provides Intelligent Recruitment for Wellness, Disease Management, Behavioral Health and Medication Compliance Interventions

Ann Arbor, MI — HealthMedia, Inc., the global leader in scalable behavior change interventions, announces today the selection of Eliza Corporation's phone-based, speech-enabled outreach technology to deploy the first phase of its broad-based engagement strategy to be announced later this year. This collaboration exemplifies HealthMedia's commitment to using multiple media to intelligently recruit participants into programs that are relevant to their specific health and communication needs.

HealthMedia provides web-based interventions for wellness, disease management, behavioral health and medication compliance. In addition, HealthMedia offers a powerful health risk assessment (HRA) that identifies health risks for individuals, reports aggregate information back to employers and health plans, and serves as a participant recruitment vehicle for interventions. By adding Eliza's timely, interactive communication channel, HealthMedia ensures broader awareness and usage of these highly scalable interventions in which participants can engage anytime, anywhere they can access the Internet.

Eliza's proprietary speech recognition engine facilitates an automated one-on-one conversation with people about their health and benefits. Working with HealthMedia, Eliza will call individuals on behalf of their health plan or employer to share tailored information about available health behavior change interventions. Based on the individual's spoken responses, the outreach points to a specific web site where the individual can participate. The outreach may also solicit feedback from individuals, such as gauging their interest in various health topics and identifying barriers or motivations to participation.

Eliza has already demonstrated success in driving individuals to the web and increasing traffic exponentially over other outreach methods. The company also has experience appropriately setting individuals' expectations about health behavior change interventions and generating alerts based on certain spoken responses. Every Eliza call is HIPAA-compliant.

"Scalability of interventions is HealthMedia's prime differentiator in this business, but scalability is nothing without engagement," says Ted Dacko, HealthMedia President and CEO. "We revolutionize behavior change every day by delivering highly efficacious interventions via the web. Making sure qualified individuals know about and use these interventions is a significant area of focus for HealthMedia this year, beginning with phone-based outreach provided by Eliza."

"The companies share a passion—we're both dedicated to connecting people with valuable resources and helping them make better decisions about their health," says Alexandra Drane, co-founder and senior vice president of Eliza. "Our combined effort is a great opportunity for health plans and employers to cost-effectively reach out to people in a way that is supportive, relevant, and engaging. And with every opportunity we have to speak with someone one-on-one, we learn more about what makes them tick, so each subsequent outreach becomes even more tailored. It's a perfect complement to HealthMedia's intelligent recruitment initiatives."

About HealthMedia, Inc.

HealthMedia, Inc. is the global leader in scalable behavior change interventions. HealthMedia's proven outcomes increase compliance, reduce medical utilization, and increase productivity in order to improve profitability for health plans, employers, pharmaceutical companies, and behavioral health organizations. With its powerful combination of proven behavior science, sophisticated technology and creative marketing, HealthMedia delivers individually tailored self-management interventions for health and wellness, disease management, medication compliance, and behavioral health. Notable clients include Kaiser Permanente, UPS, Cleveland Clinic, Johnson & Johnson, GSK, and eight Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations across the United States. HealthMedia partners include APS Healthcare, Corphealth, Health Dialog, and SHPS. For more information, visit www.healthmedia.com.

About Eliza Corporation

Eliza Corporation has pioneered the design, development, and hosting of speech-enabled programs for healthcare. The company's patented phone-based outreach supports communication between healthcare organizations and the people they serve with timely, relevant, and conversational interactions. This approach has yielded measurable clinical and financial results while inspiring ongoing behavior change. Eliza's clients span leading health care organizations, including many of the top health plans, disease management companies, and pharmaceutical companies in the nation. Eliza interacts with healthcare members in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit www.elizacorp.com or call 978-921-2700.

HealthMedia Contact:

Eliza Contact: