Nationwide Better Health continues to enhance health management service offerings
Acquisition ofINTERxVENTUSAenhances company’s online and self-management lifestyle services
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 11, 2007
Contacts:
Terri Wearsch Erlenbach 614-249-5755
erlenbt@nationwide.com
Eric Hardgrove 614-677-8516
hardgre@nationwide.com
Columbus, Ohio — Nationwide Better HealthSM, the leading provider of total population health management solutions, announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire INTERxVENTUSA (INTERVENT), a company that provides online and self-management lifestyle services, such as health risk assessments, health coaching and educational courses focusing on nutrition, physical activity, weight management, stress management and tobacco cessation. Terms of the acquisition were not released.
Nationwide Better Health has been partnering with INTERVENT for close to a year to provide its customers with a variety of lifestyle-focused services. INTERVENT’s offerings complement Nationwide Better Health’s current health and wellness offerings, and will enhance the company’s proprietary process for identifying employee health issues for earlier triage and intervention. This process saves employers dollars related to losses associated with absenteeism and presenteeism and helps identify conditions before they become chronic diseases or disabilities.
“We understand that healthier employees translate to lower health care costs, higher productivity and an overall better quality of life,” said Holly Snyder, president of Nationwide Better Health. “INTERVENT’s evidence-based health management tools provide an even better way for employees to assess and improve their health status resulting in better outcomes for employers. The company’s success in applying credible, peer-reviewed evidence within its program offerings will enable us to enhance all of the health and productivity solutions we already provide to our customers.”
Participants in Nationwide Better Health’s program are encouraged to take online health risk assessments, which are currently powered by INTERVENT. Assessments help identify employees’ critical health needs and risk factors with baseline evaluations regarding medical status, medication use, risk factors for chronic disease, lifestyle practices, readiness and barriers to change.
Nationwide Better Health develops personalized action plans that help employees make better lifestyle choices and modify their at-risk behaviors. The plan identifies an appropriate set of tools selected from a library of more than 100 lifestyle modules on topics such as nutrition, physical activity, weight management, stress management and tobacco cessation. Employers can choose to offer their employees the option of an easy-to-access, self-directed online program or one that provides additional support from a dedicated health coach. Whether self-directed or monitored by a health coach, Nationwide Better Health’s programs are customized to each individual and are based on published outcomes and national guidelines.
“Our evidence-based offerings are the perfect addition to Nationwide Better Health, an organization that prides itself on offering innovative, integrated solutions to reduce health care costs and educate employees with the right information at the right time,” said Dr. Neil Gordon, president of INTERVENT.
Programs that have used INTERVENT’s technology have proven results:
• Reduced the likelihood of heart attack for program participants in the
next 10 years by more than 20 percent
• Decreased medical claims for program participants
• Enabled about a third of participants in a tobacco cessation program
to quit smoking
• Empowered many program participants to achieve health goals through
lifestyle changes alone – without medications
Dr. Gordon will serve as Nationwide Better Health’s chief medical and science officer and will oversee the integration of INTERVENT into Nationwide Better Health’s health management offerings. He is a board-certified physician and has devoted his career of more than 25 years to the prevention of cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses. Dr. Gordon has authored more than 100 published scientific manuscripts, written eight books on exercise and preventive medicine and has been the principal investigator for research grants funded by prominent organizations including the American Heart Association, the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association.
Nationwide Better Health also recently closed on its acquisition of WellCorp, a leading provider of integrated health management services and on-site employee health services. Nationwide Better Health can now provide employers with best practice health management offerings and tools, and employees with information based on their preferences for how they want to be reached, whether it’s by phone, online, on paper or in person. Nationwide Better Health will begin integrating both companies’ products and services with its own health and wellness, and disease, disability, absence, medical and maternity management offerings this year.
About INTERxVENT
INTERVENT is a national lifestyle management and chronic disease risk reduction company based in Savannah, Ga. INTERVENT develops, licenses and provides evidence-based programs for the prevention of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. The primary purpose of INTERVENT's programs is to improve individual and population-based measures of health while simultaneously reducing health care costs. Its programs provide unique solutions for physicians, health insurers, health care systems, employers, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers and individual consumers. INTERVENT and its licensees currently serve individuals throughout the U.S. and Canada via call centers and the Internet. For more information, call 912-353-9997.
About Nationwide Better Health
Nationwide Better HealthSM, a subsidiary of Nationwide Corporation, is a leading provider of total population health management solutions aimed at lowering health care costs, increasing productivity and improving quality of life for Fortune 1000 employers and their employees. Nationwide Better Health is the first company to truly integrate the best collection of health and productivity services available today, including health and wellness, and disease, disability, absence, medical and maternity management, along with the industry’s first integrated disease and disability management offering. The company’s offerings work together and independently to address both sides of the cost equation: increased efficiency of health and productivity programs and better employee health and well-being to reduce health care-related costs. For more information, call 866-404-6924 or visit www.nwbetterhealth.com.
Nationwide, based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the world, with more than $158 billion in assets. Nationwide ranks #98 on the Fortune 100 list. The company provides a full range of insurance and financial services, including auto, motorcycle, boat, homeowners, life, commercial insurance, administrative services, health management services, annuities, mortgages, mutual funds, pensions and long-term savings plans. For more information, visit www.nationwide.com.
Nationwide, the Nationwide framemark and On Your Side are federally registered service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. Nationwide Better Health is a service mark of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.
