WellPoint Offers New E-Learning Tool on Global Medicine

WellPoint, Inc., (NYSE: WLP) one of the nation’s largest health benefits companies, today announced it has worked with Critical Measures, a national firm supporting cross-cultural health care, to offer an educational resource for physicians on the importance of a concerted approach to worldwide disease.

Recent events stemming from the Ebola virus have highlighted the need for physicians to know how to practice global medicine. Yet studies show that little curricula exist on this emerging clinical discipline, and many health care professionals in the U.S. have little formal training in the area.

In a proactive effort to help physicians in its affiliated health plan networks better understand the principles of global medicine, WellPoint worked with Critical Measures to make available a new e-learning resource that presents case studies and methods for applying evidence-based guidelines in a globally connected and mobile world.

Today, more than one billion people travel internationally each year. According to the National Institutes for Health, the need to practice global medicine stems from two major problems: increased exposure to diseases of foreign origin resulting from increased international travel; and the tendency to treat diseases sharing the same symptoms as having a domestic origin when they could have stemmed from a foreign origin.

WellPoint is pleased to offer Critical Measures’ Viewpoints: Clinical Competence in a Globally Mobile World, an online resource developed with the input of Dr. Patricia Walker and Dr. William Stauffer, two nationally renowned medical specialists on immigrant health and infectious diseases. The course offers six interactive, cross-cultural patient case studies. Although each patient has similar symptoms – such as fever and flu-like conditions – the diagnoses are radically different. Through this online training resource, physicians are educated about how diseases of foreign origin could potentially affect a patient’s diagnosis and subsequent treatment.

Viewpoints is the first continuing medical education (CME) accredited e-learning program in the U.S. on the subject of global medicine. It is accredited by the University of Minnesota's Continuing Medical Education Program and offers six hours of credit in Category One CME from the American Medical Association.

“We are grateful to have the opportunity to work with such a forward-thinking company like WellPoint,” said David Hunt, president and CEO of Critical Measures. “They saw the need for this program long before the current concerns about Ebola appeared in the news. Now WellPoint affiliated health plan members can benefit from their physicians’ new knowledge and skills.”

Physicians in WellPoint’s affiliated health plan networks can access the online course via the provider portals on the respective health plan websites.

“We’ve always been committed to promoting optimal care for our members, and in our increasingly connected world that means recognizing the importance of a global perspective on evidence-based, clinical approaches to illness, whether here in the U.S. or abroad,” said Sam Nussbaum, MD, and EVP and chief medical officer for WellPoint. “We embrace this opportunity to help educate health care professionals on how best to do that in the context of our extended global community.”

About WellPoint, Inc.

WellPoint is working to transform health care with trusted and caring solutions. Our health plan companies deliver quality products and services that give their members access to the care they need. With nearly 69 million people served by its affiliated companies, including more than 37 million enrolled in its family of health plans, WellPoint is one of the nation’s leading health benefits companies. WellPoint companies serve members as the Blue Cross licensee for California; and as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensees for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York (as the Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in 10 New York City metropolitan and surrounding counties and as the Blue Cross or Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in selected upstate counties only), Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.), and Wisconsin. In most of these service areas, WellPoint does business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, or Empire Blue Cross (in the New York service areas). It also serves customers in other states through its Amerigroup, CareMore and UniCare subsidiaries. To find out more about WellPoint, go to wellpoint.com.

About Critical Measures, LLC.

Critical Measures is a national, management consulting and training organization that specializes in cross-cultural health care. Critical Measures has worked with leading American hospitals and health plans on issues of racial and ethnic disparities in the quality of medical care, language access for Limited English Proficient and deaf and hard of hearing patients and medical disparities resulting from globally mobile populations. Articles on its work have appeared in Health Affairs, the AMA News, Managed HealthCare Executive, the Hispanic Business Journal and Frontiers, the official magazine of the American College of Health Care Executives. In 2013, Critical Measures was selected by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association of America as its primary vendor for cultural competence consulting and training services. Visit Critical Measures online at: www.cmelearning.com

Contacts:

WellPoint
Brandon Davis, 804-366-3007
Brandon.davis@wellpoint.com
or
Critical Measures
David Hunt, 612-746-1375
dbhunt@criticalmeasures.net

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