KENILWORTH, N.J., Aug. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Healthy
Interactions, a global leader in health education, in collaboration
with Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced the launch of
map4health™ – a digital platform and mobile application in
the U.S. that was designed to help facilitate and enhance
communications between diabetes patients and educators. This
technology was developed as an extension of the Journey for
Control collaboration between Healthy Interactions and Merck,
and will make its debut today at the 2018 American Association of
Diabetes Educators (AADE) Annual Conference in Baltimore.
Map4health is designed as a platform to help improve the
quality of diabetes patient support in between in-person coaching
sessions by enabling patients to connect with educators through
text and video-chat, as well as providing weekly digital activities
to sustain patient engagement. Patients may choose to securely log
health information that their educators are able to review and
respond to within the platform.
"Healthy Interactions has collaborated with Merck for over 10
years on Journey for Control to encourage patients living
with diabetes to become more engaged stewards of their health,"
said Paul Lasiuk, co-founder and
chief executive officer, Healthy Interactions. "Today, we are proud
to introduce map4health, and believe this tool will further
enhance the positive impact that diabetes educators are making in
the lives of their patients."
In 2007, Healthy Interactions and Merck, also in collaboration
with the American Diabetes Association (ADA), launched Journey
for Control – a patient-centric education initiative targeting
diabetes educators and utilizing the U.S. Diabetes Conversation
Map® – to collaborate on developing tools
focused on lifestyle and behavioral change to help healthcare
providers improve diabetes management for people living with the
disease.
"The American Diabetes Association supports technology-based
methods, along with individual and group settings, for the delivery
of effective diabetes self-management education and support,"
according to Matt Petersen, vice
president at the American Diabetes Association. "The ADA has been
extremely satisfied with the ability to connect providers and
patients that has been enabled through our collaboration with
Healthy Interactions and Merck."
"We are thrilled our work with Healthy Interactions will provide
diabetes patients and educators a digital platform for dialogue and
personalized self-management tools," added Lisa French, associate vice president, strategy
and commercial model innovation, Merck.
For more information on map4health, please visit
www.map4health.com.
About the Healthy Interactions and Merck
Collaboration
The collaboration between Healthy Interactions
and Merck began in 2007 to address unmet educational needs in
diabetes management.
Map4health, launched in 2018, is an evolution of the
companies' 11-year collaboration aimed to better equip health
educators to deliver improved patient support and education for
patients living with diabetes. The digital tool is designed to
foster communications to help patients meet their healthcare goals.
The map4health platform is owned and developed by Healthy
Interactions in collaboration with Merck and can be integrated into
existing diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES)
programs, such as Journey for Control.
About Healthy Interactions, Inc.
A global leader in
health education, Healthy Interactions, Inc. is devoted to driving
Personal Health Engagement—our term for helping individuals commit
to healthier actions. We create powerful educational approaches
that inspire valuable insights and change personal health
behaviors. We build partnerships with leading medical and disease
associations, not-for-profit organizations, corporations, and
healthcare professionals. Our approaches enable millions of people
to take control of their health and live their best lives. Our
digital tools empower health care consumers to move toward their
goals by providing information, tracking, and ongoing interactions
with peers and health educators. The result is that patients become
more active partners in their health, which improves the outcomes
of their diseases. We partner with health systems and clinics
across the U.S. and with pharmaceutical companies that sponsor our
programs around the world. For more information about Healthy
Interactions and our Conversation Map programs, please contact:
info@healthyinteractions.com.
About Merck
For more than a century, Merck, a leading
global biopharmaceutical company known as MSD outside of
the United States and Canada, has been inventing for life, bringing
forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most
challenging diseases. Through our prescription medicines, vaccines,
biologic therapies and animal health products, we work with
customers and operate in more than 140 countries to deliver
innovative health solutions. We also demonstrate our commitment to
increasing access to health care through far-reaching policies,
programs and partnerships. Today, Merck continues to be at the
forefront of research to advance the prevention and treatment of
diseases that threaten people and communities around the world -
including cancer, cardio-metabolic diseases, emerging animal
diseases, Alzheimer's disease and infectious diseases including HIV
and Ebola. For more information, visit www.merck.com
and connect with us
on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
and LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statement of Merck & Co., Inc.,
Kenilworth, N.J., USA
This
news release of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., USA (the "company") includes
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor
provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. These statements are based upon the current beliefs and
expectations of the company's management and are subject to
significant risks and uncertainties. If underlying assumptions
prove inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual
results may differ materially from those set forth in the
forward-looking statements.
Risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to, general
industry conditions and competition; general economic factors,
including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations;
the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and health care
legislation in the United States
and internationally; global trends toward health care cost
containment; technological advances, new products and patents
attained by competitors; challenges inherent in new product
development, including obtaining regulatory approval; the company's
ability to accurately predict future market conditions;
manufacturing difficulties or delays; financial instability of
international economies and sovereign risk; dependence on the
effectiveness of the company's patents and other protections for
innovative products; and the exposure to litigation, including
patent litigation, and/or regulatory actions.
The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any
forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise. Additional factors that could cause
results to differ materially from those described in the
forward-looking statements can be found in the company's 2017
Annual Report on Form 10-K and the company's other filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) available at the SEC's
Internet site (www.sec.gov).
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SOURCE Merck