DPS Health Rebrands as Canary Health, Targets Emergent-Risk Population

LOS ANGELES, May 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- DPS Health, the leader in digital health self-management, announced that effective immediately it has renamed the company Canary Health to better align with its mission to engage consumers to arrest the trajectory of chronic illness. While organizations have traditionally invested in the healthy and very sick populations, they must now invest in a third group, the "Emergent-Risk" population—adults with one or more prechronic and early-stage chronic conditions. Canary Health enables health plans, provider systems, and employers to impact the health of the Emergent-Risk; a group now comprising 25%-30% of the U.S. adult population.

Left unmanaged, individuals categorized as "Emergent-Risk" face a lifetime of compounding chronic conditions, compounding declines in quality of life, and compounding increases in cost of care. On average, each individual adds a condition every 2-3 years, and each year 15-20% transition to the high-risk population requiring high-cost medical care. According to Canary Health CEO Adam Kaufman, PhD and expert in Healthcare Economics, this translates into an additional cost of $1,000-$3,500 per person per year in preventable expenses. Kaufman stated, "With 80 million people in this population, this adds $80 to $280 billion dollars each year in cost to the U.S. healthcare industry. For organizations taking on more financial risk, this will drive them to a tipping point where compounding costs put their margins and their missions at risk."

To address the clinical and financial risks of prechronic and early-stage chronic illness, Canary Health offers a new kind of population health management service, designed to manage the emergent-risk population, from outreach to outcomes. The service puts consumers back at the center of their health self-management journeys by enabling healthcare organizations to:

• Identify and segment the emergent-risk population
• Analyze the trajectories of compounding chronic conditions and their impacts
• Deliver evidence-based digital health interventions for lifestyle, stress and condition self-management
• Impact the population by improving health outcomes, slowing the progression of existing conditions, and preventing the compounding of chronic conditions and compounding costs of care

"Without support to adopt and sustain healthy behaviors, individuals in this group get sicker, adding a new chronic condition every 2-3 years and rapidly progressing to the high cost group," said Neal Kaufman MD, MPH, Canary Health Chief Medical Officer and expert in the Emergent-Risk Population. "To halt this compounding effect, emergent-risk individuals must master three types of health self-management: lifestyle, stress and condition. Our digital health interventions address all three—for each individual and for the entire population."

Concurrent with the launch of its population management service, Canary Health announced that it will expand from engaging a segment to managing the entire 87,000 emergent-risk member population for longtime customer, the Government Employees Health Association (GEHA). According to Kathy Ross, GEHA Vice President of Clinical Operations, "For some time, we have offered two types of programs: wellness programs for our healthy population and disease management programs for our very sick population. While working closely with Canary Health over the last six years, we were able to significantly reduce the rate of adding new chronic conditions and the net utilization. These were two key factors in our decision to invest in a third strategy for health: digital health self-management for the emergent-risk population." 

For more information on Canary Health, please visit www.canaryhealth.com.

About Canary Health (formerly DPS Health)
Canary Health is a leader in the new era of population health focused on the emergent-risk population—adults with one or more prechronic or early-stage chronic conditions. The company partners with health plans, provider systems, and employers to manage their emergent-risk populations from outreach to outcomes. Innovating since 2004, the company has been recognized as a leader in digital health, including consumer engagement, behavior change programs, and health self-management interventions. Eight years of research prove the ability of these interventions to arrest the population's trajectory of compounding chronic conditions and compounding costs of care.

About GEHA
As the second-largest national health plan for civilian federal employees and retirees, GEHA provides health and dental plans to almost one million individuals worldwide. GEHA was one of the first insurance carriers eligible to provide coverage to federal employees under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Act (FEHB) of 1959. The FEHB Program contracts with several hundred health insurance plans to provide coverage for over eight million federal enrollees and dependents, including retirees. For more information, visit www.geha.com.

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SOURCE Canary Health