DMAA Honors CMS' Deputy Thomas Scully, Humana's Jonathan T. Lord, MD WASHINGTON, DC—The Disease Management Association of America (DMAA) announced the 2002 DMAA Recognizing Excellence Awards recipients at its awards banquet recently held in San Antonio, Texas in conjunction with its 4th Annual Leadership Forum. At the October 24th DMAA awards banquet, sponsored by American Healthways, the following individuals and companies were honored for their leadership in the field of disease management. Recognizing Excellence Award categories & winners: Karen Coughlin Individual Disease Management Leadership Award American Healthways Health Plan Disease Management Leadership Award Comprehensive Disease Management Company Leadership Award Best Disease Management Program—Managed Care Organization Best Disease Management Program—PPO Best Disease Management Program—Medicare Best Disease Management Program—Medicaid Best Application of Behavior Change Principles to Disease Management Best Enabling Tool for Disease Management Pharma Industry Disease Management Leadership Award Best Collaboration in Disease Management Best International Disease Management Program Best Article on Disease Management Award Special awards: 2nd Annual George W. Merck Quality Award 2nd Annual Pfizer Health Solutions e-Health Leadership Award In addition, a new annual award was unveiled in honor of Alfred Lewis, President of the Disease Management Purchasing Consortium, DMAA Past President and one of its founders. The Alfred B. Lewis President’s Award was announced by current DMAA President, Jonathan Lord, MD and awarded to Thomas Scully, Administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services for his work in encouraging the adoption of disease management in the federal sector. A taped video acceptance speech that featured Mr. Scully from his Washington, DC office was broadcast at the banquet. The other individual award, the Karen Coughlin Individual DM Leadership Award was presented to Jonathan T. Lord, MD of Humana for his career-long dedication to serving as an industry change agent, including his important accomplishments in helping to advance the DM industry’s ability to better support the millions of US citizens who struggle with chronic disease. In accepting the award, Dr. Lord noted, "It is truly an honor to accept this very special award from DMAA. Disease management is increasingly being seen as a vehicle to bring about long overdue changes to how we deal more proactively with chronic disease and all of us in the DM community deserve recognition for the new frontiers that we are working so hard to conquer." Two other special awards were presented during the dinner ceremony that was attended by over 300 conference registrants. The George W. Merck Quality Award was presented to IHC Health Plan by Merck’s Mark Degatano and the Pfizer e-Health Award was presented to VISN 8 Community Care Coordination Service of Florida. Accepting the award for VISN 8 was Dr. Robert Roswell, Deputy Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The awards were presented by DMAA Awards Committee co-chairs, Samuel Nussbaum, M.D. of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Leona Markson, Sc.D of Merck & Co. When referencing the nomination process in his speech, Dr. Nussbaum noted, "The growth and increased sophistication of the disease management industry was clearly evident in the number and quality of nominations received by the committee this year. The judges had a very tough job. In several categories, they found it difficult to identify only one recipient." Dr. Markson added, "The move to a banquet format this year provided a special environment in which to recognize and celebrate our peers for their hard work and persistency in pursuing excellence in disease management." Based in Washington, D.C., the Disease Management Association of America is a non-profit, voluntary membership organization, founded in March of 1999, which represents all aspects of the disease management community. For more information, please visit www.dmaa.org. # # # |
