"Our goal at Medforma is to provide tools that are so intuitive that people actually like to use them - so they can personally engage in health improvement they're ready for," Anderson said

By identifying the behaviors people are most ready and need to change, Health Portrait coaches users on their own health risks and provides individualized steps to help control, delay, or prevent disease and the associated health care costs. The program can also include specific modules tailored to focus on particular health issues associated with an employee group.

Health Portrait's ease of use, paired with Stanford's deep understanding of human behavior, results in employee participation rates far above the typical 30 percent achieved by traditional programs - ranging from 68 to 100 percent.

Thompson West Publishing is one of many companies who have invested in Health Portrait?„?.

"Medforma's aggregate data on our employees' health improvement allowed us to negotiate a 2 percent reduction in health insurance premiums," said Richard Dunn, who managed Thompson West's program as human resources vice president for compensation and benefits. "We implemented Medforma because it is science-based and not affiliated with any health plan or provider. We retained the program because it is easy to use, it makes employees feel more bonded to the company and it stabilized our skyrocketing insurance premiums."

SOURCE Medforma