JumpStart Invests $250,000 in Enforcer eCoaching

CLEVELAND, July 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Enforcer eCoaching, Inc., an email-based health coaching company offering a series of interactive, personalized wellness programs, has received $250,000 from nonprofit venture development organization JumpStart Inc. Enforcer eCoaching gives employers a valuable tool to reduce healthcare costs at their companies by encouraging employees and their dependents to make better daily choices, leading to healthier lifestyles. Through a combination of proprietary software-generated responses utilizing a physician-developed methodology and personalized touches from a team of real health coaches—trained experts in areas such as nutrition, exercise physiology and stress management—Enforcer participants receive daily personalized advice and guidance, tailored to a participant's specific health-improvement needs, such as tobacco cessation, weight loss, weight loss to manage diabetes or weight loss to manage hypertension.

"Employers are increasingly recognizing the critical role wellness programs play in reducing healthcare costs. Our effective coaching is the linchpin of a successful wellness program, delivering the actual intervention that leads to sustained behavior change," says Enforcer's President and CEO, Marty Butler. "Enforcer shows participants how to take personal responsibility and accountability for their health. As a result, they develop the knowledge, motivation and habits they need to maintain improved wellness. In the near-term, employers could save on the costs of employer-sponsored healthcare plans, and further down the road it also could save taxpayer dollars as these citizens presumably would enter Medicare in a healthier state. Enforcer is also a logical part of the Accountable Care Organization movement where there is a financial incentive for wellness." 

In addition to the direct to employer channel, Enforcer eCoaching provides its services through health systems and healthcare plans, providing wellness and prevention capabilities across the health services value chain. "JumpStart is thrilled to support the Cleveland-based company's efforts to build a scalable model that will enable them to roll their service out across the country," says Jerry Frantz, JumpStart's Managing Venture Partner.

Enforcer's wellness program is based on thousands of rules and millions of iterations of those rules that serve as the proprietary foundation of the formalized coaching protocol developed by Cleveland Clinic Chief Wellness Officer Dr. Michael Roizen, an internationally recognized expert who has provided daily wellness coaching to individuals for over 25 years. The company, a Cleveland Clinic spin-off, was co-founded by Dr. Roizen and respected author, television host, and health and wellness thought leader Dr. Mehmet Oz and entrepreneurs Steven Lindseth and Arthur Benjamin.

"Enforcer is a wonderful example of the breadth of breakthrough innovation at Cleveland Clinic—if it has the potential to help patients, a Clinic team member is either working on it or thinking about it. As population management becomes a driving force in healthcare, tools like Enforcer have the ability to help patients in new ways, largely unrecognized a decade ago, that will soon be central to the models of care being implemented as part of healthcare reform," said Chris Coburn, Executive Director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations.

"Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz have spent the last quarter-century gathering and refining the knowledge base that is the framework of Enforcer's product," Frantz says. "The expertise of these health and wellness thought leaders, when paired with the growth strategies and technical capabilities of the company's local leadership team, bodes well for the success of the company."

In addition to employing its own direct sales team, Enforcer has contracted with Cleveland Clinic to provide certain Enforcer services to Cleveland Clinic clients. Enforcer plans to use JumpStart's investment for software development and to implement software/operations process enhancements.

ENFORCER ECOACHING Enforcer eCoaching is an email-based health coaching company offering a series of interactive, personalized, high-value wellness programs. These programs produce enduring behavioral and environmental changes, resulting in disease reversal and greatly improved quality and vitality of life for participants. Visit www.enforcerecoaching.com to learn more.

JUMPSTART INC   JumpStart Inc. accelerates the successes of diverse entrepreneurs, their companies and the ecosystems supporting them. JumpStart has given intensive business assistance to more than 400 entrepreneurial clients and invested in 65 early stage Northeast Ohio companies. For more information, visit www.jumpstartinc.org and follow @JumpStartInc on Twitter.

CLEVELAND CLINIC Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation's best hospitals in its annual "America's Best Hospitals" survey. About 2,800 full-time salaried physicians and researchers and 11,000 nurses represent 120 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic Health System includes a main campus near downtown Cleveland, eight community hospitals and 18 Family Health Centers in Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Clinic Florida, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Cleveland Clinic Canada and, opening in 2013, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. In 2010, there were 4 million visits throughout the Cleveland Clinic health system and 167,000 hospital admissions. Patients came for treatment from every state and from more than 100 countries. Visit us at www.clevelandclinic.org.  Follow us at www.twitter.com/ClevelandClinic.

SOURCE JumpStart Inc.