ABBY Winners Announced & Honored with 2010 Innovations in Healthcare^sm Awards

Santa Ana, CA -- April 29, 2010 -- Congratulations to the 2010 Innovations in Healthcare^SM ABBY Award winners: A-Life Medical, Inc.; Specialists On Call, Inc.; and VQ OrthoCare, as well as this year’s “Leadership in Innovation” Award Winner Debra Reisenthel, Founding CEO of Novasys Medical, Inc.  These honorees were selected after presentations were made by three Award Finalists in each of three categories in the national competition to recognize companies whose innovations are reducing the cost of quality healthcare.  The winners were announced at ABL Organization’s 12th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event, on April 28, in Newport Beach.  The Event drew top executives from healthcare providers, information, medical and bio-technology, wellness, and professional services companies.

The Innovations in Healthcare^SM ABBYs were awarded in three categories:

In the "Innovation in Healthcare Information Technology & Telecommunications" category, A-Life Medical, Inc., of San Diego, CA, represented by President Jaye Connolly, won the award in recognition of its Natural Language Processing LifeCode products that reduce time and expensive delays in the medical billing process (www.alifemedical.com).

In the "Innovative Approach to the Delivery of Healthcare" category, Specialists On Call, Inc., of West Lake Village, CA, represented by CEO Joe Peterson, MD, won the ABBY for its use of video and telecommunications technology to facilitate 24/7 consultations with off-site expert emergency-trained neurologists to deliver care, particularly in inner city and remote medical facilities (www.specialistsoncall.com).

And in the "Innovation in Medical/Bio-technology" category, the ABBY went to VQ OrthoCare, of Irvine, CA, represented by CEO Jim Knape, for its BioniCare Knee System – electrotherapy-enabled knee braces that are a cost-effective and clinically efficacious alternative to knee implant operations (www.vqorthocare.com).

The Awards Event was keynoted by the 2010 “Leadership in Innovation” Award winner Debra Reisenthel, Founding CEO of Novasys Medical, Inc., of Newark, CA (www.novasysmedical.com).  Debra was honored for leading Novasys from its inception in 2001, through financing, to FDA-approval of its treatment for stress urinary incontinence, to market acceptance and to today’s widespread reimbursement by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for seniors and, increasingly, by commercial payers.

Also at the Event, David Sayen, CMS Region IX Administrator, in his "Pre-Note" address, discussed a number of the innovative "Demonstration Projects" currently underway to ensure that providers are incentivized to provide increasingly higher quality care.

Recipients of the Innovations in Healthcare^SM ABBY Awards were chosen by members of the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization after viewing all nine presentations made by three Finalists in each category. The other Award Finalists, from across North America, were: in the “Innovative Approach to the Delivery of Healthcare” category: HealthCare Partners Medical Group, of Los Angeles, CA, and WhiteGlove House Call Health, of Austin, TX; in the "Innovation in Medical/Bio-technology" category: Acclarent, Inc., of Menlo Park, CA, and King Pharmaceuticals, of Bristol, TN; and in the “Innovative Healthcare Information & Telecommunications Technology” category: Diversinet Corporation, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and PeriGen, Inc., of Princeton, NJ.

About the Adaptive Business Leaders Organization
ABL supports the needs of its Member CEOs by providing a confidential setting, where top-level executives to draw on the experience, knowledge and skill sets of their peers in a vertical industry, personal advisory board environment. Members meet each month for a half-day Round Table session with a group of industry peers from non-competing companies, they also gather several times a year at workshops and conferences to exchange ideas and connect with other CEOs. ABL's Chief Executive Leadership Development Round Table program is offered in California's Greater Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Diego Counties. More information can be found at http://www.abl.org.

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CONTACT:
Mimi Grant @ 714-245-1425 mimi@abl.org
Laura Grant @ 714-245-1427 laura@abl.org