ALR Technologies Begins Enrolling Patients in Kansas City
Partnership with KCMPA Marks First Large-Scale Commercial Deployment of the Health-e-Connect Remote Disease Management System
Richmond, VA, September 9, 2014 – ALR Technologies Inc. (OTCQB: ALRT), the chronic care medical device company, is pleased to announce the first large-scale commercial deployment of Health-e-Connect, the Company’s robust remote disease management platform. This week, a team from ALRT and the Kansas City Metropolitan Physician Association (KCMPA) began enrolling patients with Type 2 diabetes and A1C levels above 8 percent in a trial of the Health-e-Connect system. The enrollment is an innovative diabetes management component of KCMPA’s Quality Improvement Plan designed to achieve lower A1C scores for some of KCMPA’s most challenging patients.
The goal of the program is to demonstrate the ability of Health-e-Connect to improve treatment adherence and health outcomes for patients, and enable physicians to intensively manage large populations of diabetes patients remotely.
“Remote diabetes care management is part of the future of medicine,” said Bill Smith, President of ALR Technologies. “Health-e-Connect was designed to help accountable care organizations like KCMPA coordinate patient care among primary care physicians, endocrinologists, and other specialists to improve outcomes. KCMPA is on the forefront of this wave of medical innovation.”
Health-e-Connect could also become a revenue generator for KCMPA and ALRT if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) adopts its proposed payment schedule for remote chronic care management. Under the proposed rule, physicians would be reimbursed by CMS for 20 minutes of remote chronic care management each month beginning January 1, 2015. Health-e-Connect is the only off-the-shelf remote chronic care solution that allows physicians, medical groups, and accountable care organizations to take full and immediate advantage of this new reimbursement without adding entirely new technological and administrative infrastructure, while at the same time, helping physicians meet their quality goals for diabetes care.
Health-e-Connect is an FDA-cleared and HIPAA compliant technology platform to remotely monitor patient blood glucose data. ALRT’s Diabetes Care Facilitators (DCFs) using Health-e-Connect will alert KCMPA physicians and nurses when a patient’s blood glucose data is out of an acceptable range. In ALRT’s clinical trial, this type of Internet-based remote monitoring was associated with a 1.2% reduction in A1C levels over a 6-month period, from an average of 8.8% to 7.6%. Reducing A1C is valuable to patients, physicians and insurance providers because, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “In general, every percentage drop in A1C blood test results (e.g. from 8% to 7%) can reduce the risk of microvascular complications (eye, kidney and nerve diseases) by 40%.”
“We are excited to be working with ALR Technologies on this important project,” said Jill Watson, CEO of KCMPA. “If we are able to replicate in our patient population the A1C reductions that were exhibited in ALRT’s clinical trials, we’ll be well on our way toward achieving our goal of becoming the premier diabetes management medical group in the Midwest.”
About KCMPA
Kansas City Metropolitan Physician Association, LLC (KCMPA) is a membership organization/network of participating independent physicians dedicated to clinical practice redesign and quality improvement. Through a comprehensive clinical integration program, KCMPA is building a collaborative, quality driven, physician-led, health care network for the Kansas City Metropolitan area.
About ALR Technologies Inc.
ALR Technologies is a medical device company providing remote monitoring and care facilitation for patients with chronic diseases. ALRT has developed the FDA-cleared and HIPAA compliant Health-e-Connect System that collects data from blood glucose meters and uploads to a secure website. Trained Facilitators use the System to effect efficiency of care among patients, clinicians and caregivers to improve outcomes and assist health plans to optimize their quality goals. Currently, the Company is focused on diabetes and will expand its services to cover other chronic diseases anchored on verifiable data.
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This release contains certain "forward-looking statements" relating to ALR Technologies' business, and these statements reflect the current views of ALR Technologies with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. When used, the words "estimate", "expect", "anticipate", "believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. There are many factors that could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of ALR Technologies and its products to be materially different from any future results, performances or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Further management discussions of risks and uncertainties can be found in the company's quarterly filings with the Securities Exchange.