CorSolutions Takes Lead in Department of Defense Grant for Landmark Disease Management Study; Study brings attention to benefits of disease management.

Health/Medical Writers

BUFFALO GROVE, Ill.--(BW HealthWire)--May 25, 2000

CorSolutions Inc., the nation's largest disease management company, announced today that it has contracted with The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for a study of disease management for congestive heart failure, a leading cause of death among the United States' growing elderly population. The study is the largest federally funded contract ever awarded to the Health Science Center, with the first phase of the grant totaling $14 million. This study is the first of its kind to involve the DOD, the Veterans Administration and a major academic institution. The study is funded by the DOD and supported by U. S. Representative Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, Member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittees.

CorSolutions expects to provide disease management services for 1,000 congestive heart failure patients by 2001 through its collaboration with San Antonio's Health Science Center. The 27-month study will focus on retired or active-duty military, Medicaid and Medicare congestive heart failure patients. CorSolutions' disease management program and the study at the Health Science Center will concentrate on stabilizing and improving patients' health, promoting patient satisfaction and quality of life, and reducing unnecessary healthcare costs.

"This study will bring attention to the benefits of disease management, specifically for congestive heart failure patients," said L. Peter Smith, CEO of CorSolutions. "CorSolutions makes dramatic improvements in the lives of patients enrolled in our programs.

We are excited to bring these results to the veteran population of South Texas."

There are an estimated three million people in the United States with congestive heart failure, with 400,000 new cases diagnosed annually. Each year heart failure accounts for almost one million hospitalizations and costs over $10 billion, making it the most costly chronic disease. As a primary cause of death among the elderly, this study into congestive heart failure disease management will not only benefit patients participating in the study, but will also aid other people affected by the disease.

Patients participating in the study will be randomly assigned to one of three groups, the control group or one of the two intervention groups. If assigned to the control group, patients will receive the standard treatment of care through a physician, without the addition of home intervention. If placed into an intervention group, patients of one of the intervention groups will be assigned to CorSolutions' disease management program, maintaining regular telephone contact with disease management nurses. The second intervention group will be assigned to CorSolutions' disease management program but will have access to other home health technology including an Actigraph(R) watch to measure activity level, an oximeter to measure oxygen content of the blood and other noninvasive tools to measure how much blood the heart pumps each minute.

"The idea of our study is to improve management of congestive heart failure through frequent contact with nurses and case managers," said Gregory L. Freeman, M.D., professor and chief of the Division of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine at the Health Science Center and principal investigator for the study. "Our ultimate goal is to broaden the study from congestive heart failure to pulmonary disease and other chronic conditions endemic to South Texas."

The CorSolutions traditional disease management program helps physicians who manage chronically ill patients, such as those with coronary artery disease (CAD), congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diabetes mellitus, by providing them with between-visit support. CorSolutions' disease management nurses maintain regular contact with patients by telephone using MULTIFITSM, a comprehensive protocol-based clinical decision support system that was developed at the Stanford University Department of Cardiac Rehabilitation and licensed exclusively for CorSolutions.

Along with the Health Science Center, CorSolutions will be working on the study, "A Demonstration Project to Evaluate an Integrated System of Disease Management Among a Population of Veterans, Military and Medicaid Patients in South Texas," with institutions in South Texas including the South Texas Veterans Health Care System (STVHCS), Wilford Hall Medical Center, Brooke Army Medical Center, the University Health System and private physicians.

About CorSolutions. CorSolutions, a subsidiary of Buffalo Grove, IL-based Ralin Medical, Inc. (www.ralinmed.com), provides integrated disease management services nationally to 100 major health plans and physician practice management organizations representing 2.8 million Medicare risk and 50 million commercial members throughout the country. In addition to telephone consultation, interactive voice response and home visits, the company will soon be able to interact with patients and their physicians via the Internet using a web-enabled proprietary software application. Growing from $5 million in annual revenues in 1995 to more than $45 million in 2000, Ralin Medical is the nation's leading provider of disease management services.