Volume 10, Number 16 - August 25, 2005

Cardium Pursues Employers with Repositioning Strategy

As employers continue to recognize the financial and productivity benefits that disease management (DM) can produce for them, many DM firms are aggressively pursuing the employer segment of the DM market.

Large DM firms like Matria Healthcare appear to be succeeding in this pursuit based on the surge of new employer contracts they have signed and their growing pipeline of potential new employer customers (DMN, 8/10/05, p. 8; 7/25/05, p. 3; 4/24/05, p. 3; 1/10/05, p. 3). But even some of the small guys in the DM pool believe they can ride the wave of DM’s growing popularity among employers. One of them is Cardium Health.

Officials with the Farmington, Conn.-based DM firm say the convergence of increasing healthcare premiums for employers, increasing prevalence of chronic disease and an aging workforce has created a “trifecta” that is transforming employer-sponsored healthcare. And they believe that the firm holds a winning ticket that will produce a hefty payoff for the DM firm, which has expanded from its original cardiac focus to provide population-based DM programs for a range of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

That ticket to success is the result of a recent major repositioning strategy the firm has undergone in an attempt to capture a share of the growing employer segment of the DM market, according to Daniel Cave, president and chief executive officer of Cardium Health. In 2004, employers saw the lowest increase in healthcare benefit costs in five years, Cave tells DM News. “But, while the rate of increase is a welcome reprieve for employers, it masks the fact that expenses have not been reduced but merely costshifted to employees through higher co-pays and more restrictive benefit plans,” he says. “As one of the first companies to bring the benefits of disease management to self-insured employers nearly nine years ago, Cardium Health is positioned to lead the way in bringing solutions to these healthcare challenges to the employer market.”

Cardium’s positioning strategy blends traditional DM and wellness initiatives with the employee information support needed to succeed in the emerging environment of consumer-driven healthcare, Cave explains. “Employers are enthusiastically embracing disease management and wellness as ways to encourage employees to use their medical dollars most appropriately,” he says. “But for consumer-driven healthcare initiatives to succeed, consumers need to be better informed. At Cardium Health, we recognize that information without understanding is just data. People need to be given the tools, information and encouragement necessary to allow them to make good decisions. This is why from the very beginning we have focused on education and motivation to help people better understand and manage their conditions, which in turn allows them to become more informed healthcare consumers.”

Cardium’s repositioning strategy takes a two-tiered approach, according to Cave. The first tier is what Cave calls “people-centered” DM. “This involves real caring that connects with individuals where they are at in terms of their health status to empower them through education to manage their conditions,” he explains. “For disease management and wellness initiatives to achieve positive outcomes, they must start by making positive connections. The Cardium Health approach is people-centered, recognizing that an individual is more than just an employee number, a medical history or a chronic disease expense.”

That is why Cardium goes beyond predictive modeling with its DM programs, Cave says. “We use a blended opt-in/opt-out process that uses a proprietary assessment tool to consider both the quantifiable health risks as well as individuals’readiness to change and their health literacy, or level of understanding,” Cave explains. “Cardium Health understands the real and emotional challenges individuals face when they are diagnosed with a chronic disease or survive a life threatening medical event.

Navigating the healthcare system and understanding medical jargon challenges the capacity of even the most well educated individuals. Too often, the result is non-compliance, which is a leading factor in repeat hospitalizations and complications arising from chronic conditions.”

The second tier of Cardium’s repositioning strategy centers on integration of DM services to help employers design effective and appropriate healthcare benefit plans that cover the span of the healthcare continuum and fit each employer’s unique needs, says Kathy O’Brien-Bain, Cardium’s director of national accounts. “We understand that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’solution for controlling rising healthcare costs,” O’Brien-Bain tells DM News. “Each employer has its own unique profile in terms of company culture, demographic health risks and organizational objectives. [Therefore], to achieve successful outcomes, benefit plan design must be customized and integrated to coordinate care across all stages of health to ensure that each individual receives the right level of care, delivered by the right provider, at the right time. When done effectively, it truly means all program partners work together as a team, putting the interests of the employer and their employees first.

Cardium is trumpeting its repositioning strategy in a public web site the firm launched recently, according to Cave. “In keeping with the company’s commitment to education, the purpose of the web site is to provide information for self-insured employers and benefit plan sponsors so that they can be more informed con sumers of health services for their members,” he says.

Cave says the web site is rich in content that seeks to clarify the importance of three issues central to the success of any DM or wellness initiative: health literacy, self-advocacy and return on investment (ROI). The last one is particularly critical for the employer market segment, says Jim Nestor, Cardium’s chief scientific officer. “In the health improvement and disease management industry today, there is a concern that there is no standard for measuring ROI,” Nestor explains. “Because of this, it is said that anybody can make the numbers say anything. At Cardium Health, our company is dedicated to working together with our customers to understand what the numbers mean and continuously raise the bar to achieve verifiably greater results.”

Nestor says the company’s philosophy to do whatever it takes to meet or exceed customers’ expectations extends to the gathering, analysis and communication of data to demonstrate real results. “Our reporting process [utilizes] data collection and health informatics to measure program activity and demographics, clinical metrics, and financial outcomes,” he says.

All of this leaves Cave feeling optimistic about Cardium Health’s future. “We are extraordinarily excited about the future of our company and its growing position in the market. The health improvement and disease management industry is experiencing tremendous growth, and we believe that the Cardium Health people-centered strategy of advocacy for individuals with chronic illness as well as our expanding offerings across the healthcare continuum makes us uniquely positioned to lead the marketplace in the latter half of the decade.”

With permission from Disease Management News, © 2005 by National Health Information, LLC,
Atlanta, GA.