Healia Health Search Engine Wins Innovation Award at TETHIC 2005

WASHINGTON, DC – December 9, 2005 – The Emerging Technologies & Healthcare Innovations Congress (TETHIC) selected Healia® for a “Certificate of Merit” in the "Most Innovative Use of Broadband or Broadcast Applications in Healthcare” category at the 2005 TETHIC Awards. Healia was the only product recognized in that awards category. The TETHIC Awards recognize industry leadership in the areas of innovation, technology, implementation, best practices, and research. The awards were presented at the 2005 TETHIC meeting on December 8, 2005 in Washington, D.C.

“We are delighted that this distinguished panel of national health technology experts has chosen to recognize our unique health search engine,” said Tom Eng, President and CEO of Healia, Inc. “Innovative search engine technologies, such as Healia, are critical in helping consumers and health professional find high quality and personalized information. As consumers and employees increasingly assume responsibility for health decisionmaking, they will need tools to guide them to high quality online resources. It is in the best interests of health plans and employers to support members and employees in their search for high quality and personalized health information.”

The Healia health search engine empowers health plans, pharmaceutical companies, and other heath organizations and employers to provide high quality and personalized health information to their Website visitors or Web application users. Healia uses patent-pending technology to ensure that users only get high quality and personalized results, and to allow organizations to cost-effectively deliver targeted messages to users to enhance education and marketing efforts. The search engine can be easily integrated with any other Web application including electronic health records, decision support tools, and health portals. In addition, Healia’s ASP model allows deployment under an organization’s brand quickly with minimal IT support and no additional hardware.

Studies show that search is now the second most common Internet activity after email and 81% of online healthseekers use a search engine first to find health information. But people have difficultly finding high quality and personally relevant health information because the major search engines provide many generic hits, which are often of questionable quality. Poor quality information may result in inappropriate health decisions, unhealthy behaviors, wasted clinician time, and reduced worker productivity.

About the TETHIC Awards

The TETHIC Awards honor leading edge companies for their excellence and advancement in implementing innovative technologies that improve health and healthcare, and is considered the nation’s leading health technology awards event. A panel of nationally recognized judges representing academic, commercial, and non-profit organizations evaluated the many TETHIC Award applications for various criteria, including innovation, return on investment, and benefits. For more information about the Awards visit www.tethic.com.

About Healia, Inc.

Healia, Inc. is a privately held Bellevue, WA technology company that builds Web search tools to help people find high quality and personally relevant information. The company’s first product, Healia®, is the premier health search engine that provides high quality and personalized health information and targeted messages. Product R&D was supported by a competitive Small Business Innovation Research award from the National Cancer Institute.

Healia is a registered trademark of Healia, Inc.

Contact: Amy Guerber
Healia, Inc.
Nine Lake Bellevue Dr., Suite 106
Bellevue, WA 98005
Phone: 425 646 6030
Fax: 425 650 9888
media@healia.com
Website: www.healia.com