Ford Motor Company's Health Care Program Featured at the Health & Human Capital Management Congress

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2006 -- Ford Motor Company's Medical Director of Clinical Operations, Dr. Walter Talamonti, today explained one aspect of Ford's strategy to cut costs and improve health care for the company's health care insured at the World Congress' Health and Human Capital Management Congress in Washington, DC.

As of year-end 2005, Ford has about 300,000 employees globally, but helps to insure the health care of 590,000 individuals in the United States at an expense of $3.5 Billion. In Ford's "Continuum of Care" program, the company plans to make changes in order to provide better health care management to employees while at the same time reducing costs.

The "Continuum of Care" program has been designed to help employees who are at risk for developing health problems or already are dealing with acute or chronic illness. The following areas are being included:

Health Education. An integral aspect of the "Continuum of Care" program is educating employees about medical issues they may face in the future. New changes to the program will include coordinating health care messages internally within the program to get away from multiple independent messages that cause confusion. Ford also will focus on external coordination of health care messaging with employee health care plans.

Wellness. Many of Ford's manufacturing plants and administrative locations have had a wellness program running as independently at each site. The changes will help coordinate and integrate the multiple wellness programs throughout the system in order to improve program efficiency. Ford hopes to realize an increase in employee program participation.

Early Risk Management. Ford believes that early risk management is one of the most important aspects of health promotion. The company is currently looking into new methods of addressing future employee health care risks before illnesses occur.

On-Line Health Care Management. Ford will be rolling out an on-line portal for employees so that the health care users can take a greater role in their own health care management. The portal will contain various health tools that are easy to use by any employee.

World Congress is the producer of The World Health Care Congress, The World Health Care Congress - Europe, The World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress, The Health & Human Capital Management Congress, and The World Congress Leadership Summit Series. World Congress events convene CEOs and senior executives from all segments of the healthcare industry, with the latest thought leaders and case studies, representing innovative, solution- oriented approaches to make significant advances in healthcare cost and quality.

Tracey Fielding, 781-939-2555