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Great-West Healthcare’s customer materials
earn regional honors
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. – Oct. 9, 2006 – Great-West Healthcare, a national employee benefits provider, today announced that its Driver’s Ed – Roadmap to Smarter Health Care ChoicesSM program and Trailblazer magazine were selected as International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Silver Quill award of merit winners in the IABC/Southern Region. The awards recognize excellence in communication among 25 IABC Southern chapters in 14 states.
Driver’s Ed received an award of merit in the online and electronic communications category. Judges looked for effective writing integrated with design or visuals appropriate for the medium and the audience, creative and innovative approaches in communicating with the target audience, and documented measurement of objectives. Trailblazer earned an award of merit in the print communication category. The category is evaluated on appropriateness of the print piece to the communication need, effective writing that is appropriate for the medium, and creative and innovative design that supports the messages, as well as documented measurement of objectives.
“Great-West Healthcare is honored by these awards,” said Michelle Buckalew, assistant vice president of marketing at Great-West Healthcare. “The Driver’s Ed program is much-needed in view of annual consumer surveys that have shown consumers neither know the actual cost of care nor feel they can help contain costs. With Trailblazer, we hope to provide a timely source of information that will assist decision makers in making well-informed choices and providing affordable health care options.”
The Driver’s Ed program launched in August 2004 and teaches employees the cost of employer-sponsored health care and how they can help control those costs. Just like teaching teens the rules of the road before putting them behind the wheel of a car, Driver's Ed teaches employees how to stay healthier; it emphasizes the value of their health care plan and can help turn them into smarter health care consumers.
Great-West Healthcare delivers the Driver’s Ed program electronically at no additional charge to its more than 5,000 employer customers and provides four ready-to-use resources:
- The Driver’s Seat – a member newsletter that can be printed or electronically forwarded to employees;
- Posters that can be printed and displayed at workstations and in common areas;
- Inserts that can be enclosed in each member’s payroll envelope; and
- ? A link to a Web site where plan administrators retrieve current and past newsletters. Each edition of The Driver’s Seat covers three topics: the true cost of health care, how consumer decisions help control costs and how members can save money.
Introduced in August 2005, Trailblazer is a newsstand-quality magazine for employee benefits managers, brokers and consultants, and health care providers that presents alternative viewpoints and information on significant issues relating to employee health care. The 40-page, full-color premier issue focuses on consumer-driven health care (CDHC), an emerging category of group health plans that encourages members to make more informed decisions about their care based on quality and cost. The magazine explains the factors that employers must weigh carefully in considering a consumer-driven benefits strategy and looks at a wide range of plan features and emerging issues related to those programs.
The Silver Quill Awards are presented annually by IABC to recognize excellence in communication within a geographic region. The IABC is an international organization of more than 13,000 professionals dedicated to improving organizational effectiveness through strategic communication. Judging was done by professional communicators from IABC chapters in U.S. districts outside of the Southern Region.
The work plan and work samples are each worth 50 percent of the score. Each entry is evaluated by two judges and they look for evidence of careful planning and documentation of an entry's success through well-defined objectives with measurable results. Judges also consider how well a program is conceived, created and executed for its intended audiences, and how appropriate the strategy and objectives are in relation to the results desired and achieved.
About Great-West Healthcare
Great-West Healthcare, a division of Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, is a national employee benefits provider with expertise in self-funding and health care management solutions. Nationally, the division operates a health care network that includes more than 4,250 hospitals and 550,000 providers and provides health care services to 2 million people. Visit www.greatwesthealthcare.com for more information.
Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, headquartered in metro-Denver, serves its customers through a full range of health care plans, life and disability insurance, annuities, and retirement savings products and services. It is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Great-West Lifeco Inc. and a member of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies. Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company is not licensed to do business in New York. Products are sold in New York by its subsidiary First Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, White Plains, N.Y.
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