Contact:
Patricia Simino Boyce
(516) 209-5294
psboyce@ipro.org
Dennis Tartaglia/Kelly Peterson
(212) 481-7000
LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., June 11, 2007 – IPRO and its long-time public relations agency, M Booth & Associates, have received one of the communications industry’s most prestigious awards: the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) Big Apple. The award was given by PRSA for the media launch of the New York State Health Accountability Foundation’s 2006 Health Care Report Card. The Foundation is a partnership between IPRO, the New York Business Group on Health and major employers.
According to PRSA, “M Booth & Associates helped IPRO and the Health Accountability Foundation launch their first New York State Health Care Report Card with a media event that resulted in more than 70 news stories and drove thousands of employers and consumers to the report card Web site. Their campaign also successfully repositioned the Foundation.”
More than 300 public relations and communications specialists attended the awards gala, which was held May 23 in Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room. The awards were given by WABC-TV Eyewitness News anchors Michelle Charlesworth and Phil Lipof. IPRO’s award was the only one given in its category, “Marketing Consumer Services: Healthcare Services.” The award was one of three Big Apples that M Booth won for its Healthcare, Corporate and Consumer Products clients, and Booth’s second major award for the IPRO report card launch.
“We value our partnership with the M Booth team, who have helped us disseminate important information on health care quality for more than 10 years,” said Spencer Vibbert, Vice President, Communications and Corporate Development, IPRO. “The success of this campaign demonstrates the value that a strategic communications campaign can bring to an organization like ours, which relies on multiple collaborative relationships and needs to reach a range of stakeholders in order to stimulate change. This is what Booth continues to bring to the table for IPRO and the Foundation.”
The Foundation report card, which can be found at www.AboutHealthQuality.org, is completely interactive. Employers and consumers can search within each of New York’s counties, compare the performance of the county’s HMOs and hospitals across a range of health conditions and procedures, and contrast this performance with state and national averages. Each hospital’s and HMO’s individual performance on all quality, financial and utilization measures – including HMO premiums and average “list” charges, Medicaid reimbursement and length of stay for hospitals — can also be viewed. The 2007 report card, which will include data from New Jersey and a broader array of quality data for New York, will be released in July.
“We are proud of the attention we have helped bring to IPRO’s quality improvement, evaluation and reporting efforts, and to IPRO’s leadership in the health care quality field,” said Dennis Tartaglia, Senior Vice President, M Booth & Associates. “This work is intrinsically rewarding, and the awards are icing on the cake.”
In late 2006, IPRO and M Booth were recognized with a Platinum MarCom Creative Award for their media relations campaign on the launch of the report card. The MarComs, which are administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, receive more than 5,000 entries, about 15% of which receive Platinum Awards.
M Booth & Associates serves as agency of record for IPRO. Booth has worked with the Health Accountability Foundation since 1997 and launched seven editions of the Foundation’s HMO Report Card, the predecessor to the current report card. M Booth is an independent, mid-sized public relations agency that specializes in building strong brands that help clients lead in their industries.
With more than 20 years of experience in health care quality improvement and evaluation, IPRO holds major contracts with state and federal governments to review the cost and quality of services provided to Medicaid recipients, Medicare beneficiaries, and patients enrolled in managed care organizations and to work with the health care community to improve those services. IPRO also manages the Medicare-designated End Stage Renal Disease Network for New York. Based in Lake Success, New York, IPRO also holds contracts with private-sector clients to improve the quality of privately financed services.