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Intelecare Members:

I want to thank you for selecting Intelecare as your choice for personal reminders.  We are proud to have built our organization over the years based on support from members like you. Delivering nearly 7 million reminder messages every single day, Intelecare has been able to achieve this milestone thanks to our dedicated staffers, enthusiastic clients and loyal members.

Never a group to rest on our laurels, Intelecare sought feedback and released our new interface last quarter to much fanfare. We launched with a more intuitive, user friendly experience complete with options found in no other platform of its kind. At Intelecare, increasing medical adherence is our only goal – it’s what we do each and every day. And today, well today is no exception in our quest to drive adherence while thanking our loyal members.

Today, I am happy to announce that Intelecare is free, for each and every patient and caregiver. Effective immediately, Intelecare will no longer offer premium subscription levels but rather offer our full suite of solutions at no charge. And what’s more, your Intelecare Online account will permit you to access your membership account through our iPad and iPhone Editions, scheduled to be released in April. We believe your information should be able to be accessed that way it makes the most sense to you.

If you previously had a Basic membership, we have already upgraded your account. Plus and Platinum members, we have cancelled your monthly subscription payment as of today. There is nothing to do except rediscover your Intelecare account and enjoy your added features.

This is just the beginning of the very exciting 2010. And I mean very! Stay tuned…

Be well,

Kevin J. Aniskovich
President & Chief Executive Officer

My old high school basketball coach used to drive home the belief that every player had an important role within the program – regardless of how much they played.  Whether you were a starting point guard or a bench-riding, green shirt-wearing, never-gonna-get-in-a-real-game, practice player, the plan was simple – show up early, know your role and play it to the best of your ability.  Oh, and you shouldn’t make any mental errors either.  ;-)

The idea was, if an individual focused on the role granted to them, the program would be competitive.  As a teenager in a strict program, that philosophy got old, or at least confusing, real fast.  What the teenager can’t see is what we all know today to be true in business, that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”  It’s a very non-egotistical way of viewing your role in the world.

In sports, families, or in an industry as complex as health care, no single individual can provide expertise on every issue.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people out “there” who think they can, but that’s simply an inflated ego at work.  Successful and thoughtful organizations rely on a team of specialists to ensure an accurate knowledge base.  Intelecare is no different.  Relying on a diverse group of individuals to ensure our products and services reflect the needs of the markets we serve – whether they be the patient or a managed care organization – Intelecare values its diversity.  In order to make this blog worth our readers’ time, energy and effort, we are going to let those expert voices be heard!

Beginning this Friday, we will have celebrity bloggers (and yes, I am getting razzed about using this term) contributing on a weekly basis.  Representing dentistry, the law, pharmaceutical marketing, hospitals, employee benefits, mental and substance abuse disorders, nutrition and more!  We are even going to work in discounts and freebies when it makes sense.

From our inception, we’ve listened to the opinions of people to mold our offerings.  Our blog is no different.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments and suggestions as to how we can continue to evolve and make this blog, well, relevant for you.

Intelecare's Alex Sicre

When Intelecare decided to enter the social media space with its first blog entry in 2007, I was less than bullish on the idea.  I suppose it was just a fear of the unknown – a suspicion of the efficacy or usefulness of something I just didn’t understand.  But nearly 3 years later, Intelecare boasts a presence on Facebook and Twitter, is a biscuit away from launching various consumer-centric videos and a weekly Podcast (also available on YouTube) and, today, a resuscitated blog in honor of the man who started it all – Alex Sicre.

Alex was a thoughtful, poignant writer.  He loved research and, indeed, spreading the good word about all things he believed in.  His commitment to the idea that educating patients and caregivers through organic, grassroots approaches would result in better, more viable outcomes, was spot-on.  In the time since Alex’s passing in November 2008, he has left us a legacy of kindness and thought-provoking work as we continue the battle to increase medication adherence.

In the past year, Intelecare has broadened its member base and increased its work with managed care organizations, pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies.  Launched a completely overhauled user experience and continued to increase the number of patients using the Intelecare system – all during this volatile economic climate.  In that same time frame we lost touch with that grassroots philosophy that Alex championed to educate a community about the negative effects of non-adherence.  That ends today.

Alex’s work at Intelecare immersed him in the issues of non-compliance, but even he struggled with adherence to his medication regimen.  If medication adherence was difficult for someone like Alex, imagine how trying it can be for patients and caregivers whose busy lives pull them in multiple directions without a direct understanding of the ramifications of non-adherence?  Make no mistake about it, non-adherence is America’s biggest drug problem.

I am reminded of the statistics everyday:

• 1 out of every 2 people are non-compliant
• $300 billion in costs to the healthcare system with far reaching health and socio-economic implications
• $47 billion in hospitalization costs directly attributed to non-adherence

The statistics are daunting, but we can change them.  We can increase adherence and persistency.  At Intelecare, we believe our communications hub permits results based on a preference-based reminder.  Our approach to communications is paradigm-shifting that includes reminders but provides education, rewards and, ultimately, home delivery of medications with a click of a button.

Please join the entire Intelecare family in making this goal of increasing medication adherence a reality today.

The title: Effectively Increasing Patient Adherence as a 360 Degree Approach. He also introduced the term Adherence 2.0 (in line with Health 2.0) and released the preliminary findings of a survey on the utilization of employee wellness programs.

Hope you enjoy!