Griffin Hospital To Implement Vree Health's TransitionAdvantage™ To Help Patients Transition From Hospital To Home

NORTH WALES, Pa., May 14, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Vree Health, a subsidiary of Merck focused on technology-enabled services designed to improve the reach, cost-efficiency and efficacy of healthcare, today announced that Griffin Hospital will implement Vree Health's TransitionAdvantage™, a post-discharge service designed to help hospitals reduce preventable 30-day patient readmissions.  By engaging patients on a daily basis and improving coordination across care providers, TransitionAdvantage is designed to help patients adhere to the hospital's recommended post-discharge care plan.  

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"Helping patients transition from hospital to home is a major healthcare challenge that requires providing individual attention for each patient after they leave the hospital," said Kathleen Martin, vice president for Patient Safety and Care Improvement at Griffin Hospital.  "As part of our commitment to being a leader in preventing hospital readmissions, Griffin Hospital is excited to be implementing TransitionAdvantage as part of our efforts to support patients during their post-hospital recovery."

According to the authors of a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "Medicare beneficiaries experience errors during transitions among care settings, yielding harms that include unnecessary rehospitalizations."^[i]  Griffin Hospital aims to facilitate care coordination by providing patients and their caregivers with access to TransitionAdvantage's Transition Liaisons, who help keep caregivers up to date about the patient's medications, care plan, health records, appointments and other important information.  The TransitionAdvantage service will also engage patients through digital communication tools and daily health checks, collecting vital signs and other key data used to identify conditions that may signal health issues before they become serious and costly.

"We are honored to be working with Griffin Hospital, which is nationally recognized for its patient-centered approach under the Planetree Model of Care, as well as its high quality of care and innovative approach to engaging the community to improve patient care," said Kyle Dolbow, president of Vree Health.  "Vree Health will provide the infrastructure, people and technology to help Griffin extend their resources to provide high-quality care to patients after they leave the hospital." 

About Griffin Hospital
Griffin Hospital, located in Derby, Conn., is a 160-bed acute care community hospital serving more than 107,000 residents of the Lower Naugatuck Valley Region of the state.  Griffin Hospital also serves as the flagship hospital for Planetree, an international leader in patient-centered care, and has received national recognition for creating a facility and approach to patient care that is responsive to the needs of patients.  Many healthcare facilities around the world send visitors to Griffin Hospital and incorporate its concepts into their healthcare models.  Griffin Hospital is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt subsidiary of the Griffin Health Services Corporation.

About Vree Health
Vree Health LLC, a subsidiary of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., is dedicated to helping healthcare organizations rise above the readmissions challenges with technology-enabled services designed to improve the reach, cost-efficiency and efficacy of healthcare.  Our innovative technologies and high-touch services are designed to help coordinate care across providers; aggregate, analyze, and effectively utilize disparate data sources; and engage patients and their families in actively managing patient care.  Our TransitionAdvantage^™ service offers a suite of services that merge digital technology with personal engagement for each patient, encouraging compliance with prescribed care plans.  To learn more, visit www.vreehealth.com.  

About Merck
Today's Merck is a global healthcare leader working to help the world be well. Merck is known as MSD outside the United States and Canada.  Through our prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, and consumer care and animal health products, we work with customers and operate in more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions.  We also demonstrate our commitment to increasing access to healthcare through far-reaching policies, programs and partnerships.  For more information, visit www.merck.com and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statement
This news release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Merck's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties.  There can be no guarantees with respect to pipeline products that the products will receive the necessary regulatory approvals or that they will prove to be commercially successful.  If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

Risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to, general industry conditions and competition; general economic factors, including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and health care legislation in the United States and internationally; global trends toward health care cost containment; technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges inherent in new product development, including obtaining regulatory approval; Merck's ability to accurately predict future market conditions; manufacturing difficulties or delays; financial instability of international economies and sovereign risk; dependence on the effectiveness of Merck's patents and other protections for innovative products; and the exposure to litigation, including patent litigation, and/or regulatory actions.

Merck undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.  Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in Merck's 2012 Annual Report on Form 10-K and the company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) available at the SEC's Internet site (www.sec.gov).

^[i] Brock J et al., Association Between Quality Improvement for Care Transitions in Communities and Rehospitalizations Among Medicare Beneficiaries. JAMA. 2013;309:381-391
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SOURCE Vree Health