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Eliza Corporation Appoints MIT Distinguished Professor Michael A. Cusumano to its Board of Directors

Technology industry luminary will help Eliza expand its leadership position in the healthcare communications market

Beverly, MA — Eliza Corporation announces the addition of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor Michael A. Cusumano, PhD, to the company's Board of Directors. Dr. Cusumano specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in the computer software industry. He has consulted for more than 50 major companies around the world. He is also the author of dozens of publications that explore the role of innovation in the technology industry — including best-selling books such as "Microsoft Secrets" and, most recently, "The Business of Software."

Dr. Cusumano joins Eliza's board as the company rolls out Eliza OnCall™, its next generation technology platform. This new platform represents an important advance in Eliza's existing technical capabilities and the company's ability to expand its operations in the future.

Extending Eliza's leadership position

In his role as a member of Eliza's Board of Directors, Dr. Cusumano will build upon the company's success and help position it for continued growth and diversification. "There is a big, growing market for the highly tailored communications that Eliza has been refining over the past several years," says Dr. Cusumano. "The company has deep expertise in voice recognition, telecommunications technology, analytics, and unique personal engagement strategies. These capabilities have enabled Eliza to develop the most conversational, engaging interactions in the field of automated outreach using what is still our most important means of electronic communication — the telephone. These capabilities also put the company in a great position to extend its leadership position in the growing field of healthcare communications and eventually move into other domains and communication media."

"We're pleased to have someone with Dr. Cusumano's record of thought leadership and influence in the software industry join our board," says Lucas Merrow, CEO of Eliza Corporation. "His insight into operations as well as evolving markets will be invaluable as we continue to roll out first-of-kind technologies that support effective healthcare communications."

A virtual focus group... that yields healthier outcomes

Over the past nine years, the nation's leading healthcare organizations have been using Eliza's patented speech recognition technology and call automation platform to share health and benefit information with members and patients in a highly cost-effective manner. Eliza's programs combine the science of speech recognition with a unique, evidence-based methodology of how to make healthcare communications feel personal and relevant. Through these capabilities, Eliza offers the most engaging, conversational interactions on the market.

Eliza's speech recognition engine is able to understand and appropriately interpret a person's natural spoken responses. This lets healthcare organizations gather valuable insight into their members' attitudes and behaviors surrounding their health — think ‘virtual focus group'. Eliza integrates information learned during these calls with an individual's clinical and demographic data to inform future outreach — whether calls, mailings, text messages, or e-mails — thus guiding an organization's integrated, multi-modal communications strategy.

Eliza's phone-based, speech-enabled programs lead the market in measurable outcomes — such as multimillion dollar savings in members' prescription drug costs over an 18-month period; a 70% increase in health improvement program enrollment compared to the rates achieved by live callers; and more than tripling the likelihood of member retention within a health plan over the course of a year.

About Eliza Corporation

Eliza Corporation connects millions of people with valuable, personally relevant, healthcare information every day. With its patented speech recognition technology and innovative technology platform, Eliza leads the market with the strongest track record of innovation and outcomes, the broadest range of proven programs, and the most comprehensive suite of patented technologies and approaches.

Eliza's clients span leading healthcare organizations, including nine of the top ten largest national health plans, four of the top five disease management companies, three of the top four pharmacy benefit managers, six of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the nation, and the leading third party administrators. The innovation, outcomes, and results of Eliza programs have been nationally recognized by organizations including the Centers for Prevention and Disease Control, the BlueCross BlueShield Association, the Consumer Directed Health Care Congress, and Harvard Medical School. Eliza's Information Security Management System is ISO 27001:2005 certified. For more information, please visit www.elizacorp.com or call 978-921-2700.

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