WASHINGTON – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to demonstrate how doctors can use home health monitoring technology to help Medicare patients with chronic illness. The three-year CMS project, slated to begin in January 2006, will employ Health Hero Network's Health Buddy system to support doctors at medical groups in Oregon and Washington in coaching and monitoring high-cost Medicare patients to help them stay healthy and out of the hospital.

Most Medicare costs are associated with patients with severe, complex chronic illness. The CMS Care Management for High-Cost Beneficiaries Demonstration is designed to show how doctors and hospitals can focus on prevention. Health Hero Network and partners have named the effort the ACCENT Project – Advancing Chronic Care through E-Health Networks and Technologies. Other ACCENT Project team members are the American Medical Group Association, Bend Memorial Clinic in Bend, Ore., and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center in Wenatchee, Wash.

"Doctors and patients, supported by technology, will work together to transform how we care for people with complex chronic illness," Steve Brown, Health Hero Network's president and CEO, said in a statement. "We've helped improve the quality of life for thousands of veterans through our work with the VA. We're excited about having a similar impact on the lives of thousands of other American seniors in Medicare."

ACCENT has developed a consistent, technology-based care management process. The medical groups will enroll up to 2,000 patients with congestive heart failure, diabetes and/or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The goals are to demonstrate improvements in quality of life and care for enrolled patients, and at least a 5 percent net savings in Medicare costs of caring for those patients.