Amedisys Welcomes Julie L. Lewis as Vice President of Health Policy and Government Relations.

Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED), one of America's leading home care and hospice companies, recently announced that Julie L. Lewis will serve as Vice President of Health Policy and Government Relations (see also Chronic Disease).

In this new role, Ms. Lewis is assisting Amedisys in the continued development of a patient-centered, value-driven agenda for effective chronic disease management and end-of-life care that focuses on the quality and sustainability of the U.S. health care system. Ms. Lewis works with hospitals, physicians, and private payers to develop pilots to test new delivery and payment models for post-acute, palliative, and chronic disease care. She also sits on the National Quality Forum's National Priorities Partnership on behalf of the Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation.

"The aging demographics facing our economy and the health care costs associated with those demographics are overwhelming," stated Tim Barfield, Chief Development Officer. "The future of health care is in the home, and Julie's role is instrumental in communicating with Washington that Amedisys is well-positioned to administer comprehensive patient management while helping our nation control skyrocketing Medicare costs by providing a high quality, cost-effective form of health care."

Prior to joining Amedisys, Ms. Lewis served as the Director of Health Policy at the Dartmouth Institute (TDI) for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Hanover, New Hampshire. Ms. Lewis managed the health policy team at TDI, which focuses on payment reform, quality improvement in the delivery system, and population health measurement. Ms. Lewis also served as lead staff for the collaboration between TDI and the Brookings Institution and was the director of the Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) project, which included implementation of five pilots around the country, development of a starter set of performance measures, and data analysis of current spending and growth trends.

Prior to that, Ms. Lewis was the Associate for Quality Programs at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) in Washington, DC, where she served as lead staff in the creation of the Surgical Quality Alliance and development of performance measures for surgical care.

She has also held various positions in the U.S. House of Representatives for the former Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. While on Capitol Hill, Ms. Lewis worked on domestic issues for the Speaker, including health care, banking and finance, education, and women's issues.

Ms. Lewis holds a master's degree in business administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a bachelor's degree in political science from Augustana College. About Amedisys: Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED) is the nation's leading health care company focused on bringing home the continuum of care. Each day Amedisys delivers personalized health care services to more than 35,000 individual patients and their families, in the comfort of patients' homes. Amedisys has two divisions, home health care and hospice. The Company's state-of-the-art advanced chronic care management programs and leading-edge technology enables it to deliver quality care based upon the latest evidence-based best practices. Amedisys is a recognized innovator, being one of the first in the industry to equip its clinicians with point-of-care laptop technology and referring physicians with an internet portal that enables real-time coordination of patient care seamlessly. Amedisys also has the industry's first-ever nationwide Care Transitions program. Amedisys Care Transitions is designed to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions through patient and caregiver health coaching and care coordination, which starts in the hospital and continues throughout completion of the patient's home health plan of care. For more information about the Company, please visit: www.amedisys.com.

Keywords: Amedisys, Inc., Chronic Disease, Dartmouth College, Disease Attributes, Government, Hospital, House of Representatives, Internet Portals, Legal Issues, Marketing and Licensing Agreements, Pathologic Processes, Political Science, Politics, Surgery, Technology, World Wide Web.

This article was prepared by Health & Medicine Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2011, Health & Medicine Week via NewsRx.com.