Health Hero Network to Deliver Technology Platform to Kaiser Permanente in Southern California for Disease Management Study.

Business Editors/Health & High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 2, 2002

Health Hero Network, Inc., today announced an agreement with Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) to conduct a disease management study for Coronary Heart Failure (CHF) patients. The study will be based on the Health Hero(R) technology platform including patient and web-based communication tools complementing SCPMG's existing CHF disease management programs. By leveraging the strengths of the SCPMG Physician/ Nurse/ Patient relationships with the daily patient contact of the Health Hero technology platform, the six-month CHF program is designed to measure improvements in patient self-care knowledge, satisfaction, health status, quality of care as well as increased nurse efficiency and productivity. The study is slated to begin in the second quarter of 2002 after Kaiser Permanente quality controls have been approved and implemented.

The SCPMG study will involve CHF patients managed though numerous Kaiser Permanente locations, and will provide care managers with patient data regarding a patient's symptoms, behavior and health status. The patients will receive daily reminders through the Health Buddy(R) appliance about important healthy lifestyle guidelines such as diet, exercise and medication compliance as well as monitoring for early symptom exacerbation.

"Kaiser Permanente is committed to high quality patient care and patient education when it comes to disease management," said Dr. Roger Benton, director of SCPMG's care management and clinical services. "User friendly Internet communications tools that may improve symptom monitoring and patient education provide an opportunity to achieve better care. This particular web-based tool has the potential to enhance the existing patients' contact with their case managers."

Steve Brown, president and CEO of Health Hero Network remarked, "We are excited about helping Kaiser Permanente work toward improving patient care through remote health monitoring and disease management. Kaiser Permanente's philosophy of educating patients to better care for themselves while increasing the frequency of contact with SCPMG nurses is an ideal fit with our technology."

The easy-to-use Health Buddy appliance together with the Health Hero(R) iCare Desktop(TM), a web-based application used by case managers to receive and review patient daily responses, provide a communications link between healthcare providers and their chronically ill patients. The iCare Desktop automatically flags patients whose daily measurements fall outside of safe clinical ranges highlighting the possible need for earlier intervention. Nurses can more than double patient contact frequency and the number of patients they handle, while creating more free time to focus on the patients who need intervention the most.

About Health Hero Network

Health Hero Network, Inc., based in Mountain View, Calif., develops and markets the industry leading technology platform for remote health monitoring, evaluation and management. The Health Hero platform includes the company's Health Buddy(R) appliance and other licensee devices for data collection and communications with patients, and iCare Desktop(TM), an Internet-based care management and research solution for healthcare professionals. Health Hero Network also provides a secure data center acting as the repository for application services and collected data, and programs for over a dozen major chronic diseases. Health Hero Network licenses its platform to medical technology and services companies seeking a technology blueprint proven to enable better chronic care with lower costs to the healthcare system. Health Hero Network technology is protected by over 50 issued U.S. patents. For more information about Health Hero, visit www.healthhero.com.