Cisco WebEx online meetings help obese patients achieve health and lifestyle goals while reducing overall service costs

SAN JOSE, Calif., – April 13, 2009 – Cardiometabolic Support Network (CMSN) is using Cisco WebEx online meetings to deliver expert advice and support to patients through live, online group meetings with registered dietitians, reducing patient costs by over 50 percent.

Highlights / Key Facts:
Using Cisco WebEx online meetings, CMSN’s founder Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York Presbyterian Weill-Cornell Medical Center, and a team of key leaders in the treatment and management of obesity and diabetes have developed this innovative health and lifestyle program to reduce the costs related to obesity and obesity-related illnesses. Also, because the CMSN program is accessible to anyone who has a broadband internet connection and a phone line, trips to medical offices and waiting rooms are eliminated.

WebEx combines real-time desktop sharing with phone conferencing, enabling people in companies of all sizes to present information, share applications, and collaborate on projects with customers, partners, employees, and patients around the globe as easily as if they were together in person. Customers subscribe to WebEx, a web-based service, and are able to meet as often as they like for a set monthly fee. Cisco WebEx technology delivers a rich set of features, always-on reliability, and high-level security.

As one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide, obesity has been identified by the Obama administration as a serious public health issue in the United States. Healthcare providers are looking for new tools to combat this complex problem, including group collaboration solutions such as Cisco WebEx meetings. WebEx helps enable healthcare providers to offer virtual one-on-one counseling, group therapy, and peer support sessions all through a standard web browser. This personal care, combined with group support, helped CMSN patient Connie lose 20 pounds, or 5.3 percent of her total body weight. More importantly, she has kept the weight off through exercise and modifications to her eating habits.

Cisco collaboration tools help organizations of all sizes to bring people and information together to make working together easy, no matter where they are located. Cisco WebEx solutions help all types of companies to be able to reach anyone, anywhere, at any time, to develop strategies and make decisions that are facilitated by an open, highly secure, adaptable collaboration environment that can improve any company’s creativity and velocity.

CMSN’s unique program interfaces with the patient’s physician, delivers high-quality, medically managed weight loss, online access to a registered dietitian through live, online group meetings – yet maintains patient’s wishes for some level of anonymity. Patients can register and access the program through www.cmsnonline.com.

Tags / Keywords:
Cisco, WebEx, Cisco WebEx, Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Meeting Center, collaboration, communications, obesity, weight loss, Cardiometabolic Support Network, diabetes, counseling, CMSN, CMSNonline.com, online meetings, Louis Aronne, dietitian

Links / URLs:

•WebEx for online meetings http://www.webex.com/for-meetings.html
•Cardiometabolic Support Network https://www.cmsnonline.com/Home
•Web Conferencing: Just What the Doctor Ordered http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/ts_041309.html
•Cisco WebEx online meetings quick tour www.webex.com/go/quick_tour
•Cisco WebEx technology http://webex.com/what-is-webex/technology-at-a-glance.html
•Cisco Collaboration http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns870/index.html

Quote:
“Research shows that group treatment of obesity is most effective. I believe our web-based treatment model is a breakthrough in delivering cost-effective, professional care to the average patient,” said Dr. Louis Aronne, a Weill-Cornell Medical Center obesity expert and researcher in New York City. “You don’t have to travel across the country or even leave the comfort of your home to be part of the CMSN program. Anyone with an internet connection can participate in this treatment program.”

Dr. Louis Aronne is Former President of the The Obesity Society and edited the National Institutes of Health Practical Guide to the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults.

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