Last Week to Register for Awards Event Honoring Innovative Healthcare Companies

For eight years, innovative companies in the healthcare industry have been honored with the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization's ABBY Awards by their peers and colleagues. These annual awards - which will be presented again at the Ninth Annual Innovations in HealthcareSM Awards Event on June 6, 2007 - recognize companies that are significantly improving the way healthcare is delivered, while reducing the total cost of high-quality care. What impact have ABBY award-winning companies had since being singled out for such an honor?

Orange, CA (PRWEB) May 31, 2007 -- For eight years, innovative companies in the healthcare industry have been honored with the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization's ABBY Awards by their peers and colleagues. These annual awards - which will be presented again at the Ninth Annual Innovations in HealthcareSM Awards Event on June 6, 2007 - recognize companies that are significantly improving the way healthcare is delivered, while reducing the total cost of high-quality care.

What impact have ABBY award-winning companies had since being singled out for such an honor?

Several past winners recently shared their progress. HealthAllies, a discount medical plan organization, won an ABBY Award in 2000. In 2003, it was acquired by UnitedHealth Group, increasing HealthAllies' membership to more than 10 million subscribers. Participants typically save 10% to 50% on a range of products and services outside the scope of their benefit plans. Also, in Spring 2007, the HealthAllies MasterCard was launched, a combination discount medical services card and all-purpose credit card, which provides users the ability to repay medical charges over an extended period with no finance charges.

Molly Coye, MD, the founder of Health Technology Center (HealthTech) won what's now called the "Leadership in Innovation" Award in 2002 and has since launched a multi-pronged study of successful innovation, adoption and implementation strategies across industries with the goal of creating a framework for appropriate, effective and faster innovation in the application of technology to improve healthcare. HealthTech is currently producing work on topics as diverse as Green Facility Design and Infection Control, The Future of RFID and Real Time Location Tracking, Remote Health Services for Chronic and Acute Care, and the Future of Retail Healthcare.

The largest provider of hospitalist medicine in the U.S., IPC - The Hospitalist Company, won an ABBY Award in 2003 and today serves more than 200 facilities with over 1.7 million patient visits (in 2006) by 600-plus hospitalists and more than 10,000 referring physicians.

A 2004 ABBY Award winner, Epocrates, which develops point-of-care solutions for clinicians, was subsequently named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies for two consecutive years, ranking 176 in 2006. Company CEO Kirk Loevner was also a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Northern California in 2006 and is already a semi-finalist for 2007. Another 2004 ABBY Award winner, Aperio Technologies is the market leader in digital pathology with almost 200 state-of-the-art systems in 17 countries. In addition to its scanners, Aperio launched Spectrum software in 2006, the first complete digital pathology information management software developed for workflow management, data archival and intelligent retrieval, web-based viewing, and image analysis. Aperio systems are installed at leading biopharmaceutical companies, reference labs, and academic medical centers.

InTouch Health, which provides remote presence solutions that empower physicians to easily and more frequently visit with hospital-based patients, also won an ABBY Award in 2004. At that time, InTouch had 15 hospital customers, but today has more than 100, including UCLA, CHOC, Hoag, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Mission Hospital, and Glendale Adventist. In 2005, InTouch completed another round of financing and received Cisco's Growing with Technology Award and the American Telemedicine Association's Innovation Award. It was also featured on the cover of Business Week.

Silverado Senior Living operated 12 assisted living communities when it was awarded an ABBY in 2004. The company subsequently added two additional service lines: Care Management/Home Care and Hospice services. Today, Silverado operates four Care Management/Home Care offices and four Hospice offices - three in California and one in Houston, Texas, in both cases. Silverado also opened a new assisted living community, in 2006, in Plano, Texas, with plans to open another in Tustin, California in June 2007, and in Redondo Beach and West Los Angeles in 2008. Silverado's revenues have grown from $52 million in 2004 to $81 million in 2006, with expectations to top $100 million in 2007.

Care Level Management, which operates the Personal Visiting Physician (house call doctor) delivery system for elderly and chronically ill patients, won its ABBY Award in June 2005 and by September of that year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid awarded the company a three-year contract for its in-home physician care model to test the effects of increased access and quality of care to chronically ill elderly, and subsequent cost savings to Medicare. By October 2006, Medicare added beneficiaries to the project increasing its scope to more than 20,000 chronically ill patients. Also, major medical organizations continue to recognize the need for Care Level Management's delivery system. Most recently, Blue Cross of California and Independence Blue Cross in Pennsylvania initiated pilots of the Personal Visiting Physician delivery system of care.

This year's Ninth Annual ABL Innovations in HealthcareSM Awards Event will be held the afternoon of June 6th, in Newport Beach, California. Three winners out of the following nine Finalists will be chosen by their peers and colleagues to receive this honor: In the Innovative Healthcare IT Category: DestinationRx, Inc.; eHealth Inc.; and IntelliDOT Corporation. In the Innovative Medical Devices Category: ev3 Neurovascular; Acclarent, Inc.; and U.S. Medical Instruments, Inc. And, in the Innovative Approaches to Providing Healthcare Category: Conceptus, Inc.; Integrated Healthcare Association; and Sutter Health.

The Ninth Annual Innovations in HealthcareSM Awards Event is open to ABL Members, as well as senior executives of healthcare providers and payers, medical device, therapeutic, diagnostic, and healthcare information and services firms. For more information about the event, ABBY Awards and/or the ABL Organization, please contact Jen Meloni at ABL at (714) 245-1427 or visit www.abl.org.

About the Adaptive Business Leaders Organization:
Since its founding in 1983, through focused, confidential, monthly Round Tables for healthcare services, life science and technology company CEOs, and regularly-scheduled Conferences and Events, ABL Members have helped each other capitalize on market trends and opportunities, assuring that they are well positioned for corporate and personal success.

Contact:
Jen Meloni, Event Coordinator, or Mimi Grant, President
Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization
(714) 245-2400

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