BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Mar 23, 2010 -- Hooper Holmes (AMEX:HH) today announced a new, interactive, health screening platform to identify people with undiagnosed or pre-diabetes earlier and more efficiently than currently possible.
Diabetes Know Now! is an innovative 'screen before the screen,' that combines an online diabetes risk assessment with an at-home diabetes laboratory test.
Users complete an online diabetes risk assessment that places them in three risk categories -- high, moderate, or low. Users at high risk for having or developing diabetes are then offered an at-home test kit that allows them to collect their own blood sample and return it to Hooper Holmes' Heritage Laboratories. Heritage Laboratories then completes a Hemoglobin A1c test, which the American Diabetes Association now recommends as the screening test for diabetes and returns the results electronically to the secure Diabetes Know Now! account established by the user.
Hooper Holmes is launching the Diabetes Know Now! platform to its 2,000 employees on March 23rd which is Diabetes Alert Day. In early April, Hooper Holmes will also launch the platform in partnership with a major health plan to both members and non-members within the plan's coverage area.
"Prior to Diabetes Know Now! there was not an effective and efficient way to target diabetes screenings," said Chris Behling, President of Hooper Holmes Health & Wellness. "Now, instead of having to complete blood tests on an entire population, we can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our customers' programs, by only needing to complete blood testing on a targeted group who are at the highest risk for having or developing diabetes."
"We are very excited about our new Diabetes Know Now! platform and we are proud to be offering it to our own employees on Diabetes Alert Day," said Roy Bubbs, CEO of Hooper Holmes. "There are 57 million people in America with pre-diabetes and six million with undiagnosed diabetes. Diabetes is both preventable and treatable, and helping our employees understand their risks and take steps to manage their health is just the right thing to do."
About Hooper Holmes
Hooper Holmes is a leader in collecting personal health data and transforming it into useful information, enabling customers to take actions that manage or reduce their risks and expenses. As a leading provider of risk assessment services for the insurance industry, Hooper Holmes provides insurers with the widest range of medical exam, data collection, laboratory testing and underwriting services in the industry.
With presence in more than 250 markets and a network of thousands of examiners, Hooper Holmes can arrange a medical exam anywhere in the U.S. and deliver the results to its customers. Each year we arrange more medical exams than any other company and process millions of specimens in our laboratory. We provide a complete service for wellness, disease management, and managed care companies including scheduling support, fulfillment of supplies, blood collection kits, medical screenings, and lab testing and data transmission. We underwrite thousands of cases annually and complete more than a million telephone interviews.
This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, as such term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements are our ability to successfully implement our business strategy; uncertainty as to our working capital requirements over the next 12 to 24 months; our ability to maintain compliance with the financial covenant in our credit facility; our expectations regarding our operating cash flows; and the rate of life insurance application activity. Additional information about these and other factors that could affect the Company's business is set forth in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 16, 2010. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.