Cerner Honored With 2015 Health Leadership and Business Excellence Award

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Oct 6, 2015) - Cerner, a global leader in health care technology, was honored today with the inaugural Health Leadership and Business Excellence Award for its demonstration of excellence and efficiency in administering health and productivity programs.

The award, sponsored by the National Business Group on Health and Truven Health Analytics, recognizes companies that have achieved bottom-line business improvements by efficiently managing health, absence and productivity programs that directly impact overall organizational performance. The award was presented today to Arielle Bogorad, senior director of Worldwide Benefits, Wellness and Fitness at Cerner, at the National Business Group on Health's National Conference on Health, Productivity and Human Capital in Boston.

The Health Leadership and Excellence Award is solely based on employers' submissions to the Employer Measures of Productivity, Absence and Quality™ (EMPAQ^®) program, an employer-developed and -driven initiative that provides standardized metrics to help companies evaluate their health and productivity programs. Key criteria in EMPAQ^® include short- and long-term disability, workers' compensation, group health, family and medical leave, incidental and integrated absence, employee assistance programs and health management programs. These metrics are used to objectively assess health and productivity program effectiveness versus peer group benchmarks. Based on these criteria, Cerner outperformed other employers in administering its health and productivity programs.

"We are very pleased to honor Cerner as the inaugural winner of the Health Leadership and Business Excellence Award," said Brian Marcotte, president and CEO of the National Business Group on Health. "The results of the EMPAQ^® survey show that Cerner demonstrated strong business outcomes around incidence, cost, and lost workdays as compared to other large employers. The results clearly demonstrate Cerner's commitment to supporting its associates' health and well-being and the growing focus by companies to link health improvement to business performance."

"The value of the EMPAQ^® program is that it demonstrates the correlation between employee health, productivity and absence and the profitability of a company compared with objective, industry-group benchmarks," said Barbara Graovac, senior vice president and general manager of Payer Solutions at Truven Health Analytics. "This kind of data is essential for companies that are continually scrutinizing their costs and looking for ways to maximize the effectiveness of their program designs. We're honored to recognize Cerner for helping to set a new standard for large employers everywhere."

About Truven Health Analytics
Truven Health Analytics delivers the answers that clients need to improve healthcare quality and access while reducing costs. We provide market leading performance improvement built on data integrity and empirical truth. For more than 30 years, our insights and solutions have been providing hospitals and clinicians, employers and health plans, state and federal government agencies, life sciences firms and policymakers the facts they need to make confident decisions that directly affect the health and well-being of people and organizations in the US and around the world.

Truven Health Analytics owns some of the most trusted brands in healthcare, such as MarketScan, 100 Top Hospitals, Advantage Suite, Micromedex, Simpler, ActionOI, Heartbeat Experts and JWA. Truven Health has its principal offices in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Chicago; and Denver. For more information, please visit http://truvenhealth.com.

About the National Business Group on Health
The National Business Group on Health® is the nation's only non-profit organization devoted exclusively to representing large employers' perspective on national health policy issues and helping companies optimize business performance through health improvement, innovation and health care management. The Business Group leads initiatives to address the most relevant health care issues facing employers today and enables human resource and benefit leaders to learn, share and leverage best practices from the most progressive companies. Business Group members, which include 71 Fortune 100 companies, provide health coverage for more than 50 million U.S. workers, retirees and their families. For more information, visit www.businessgrouphealth.org.