SAN BERNARDINO, CA . . . . Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) is among the first winners of the new World Wide Web Health Awards.

The WWW Health Awards is an international competition conducted by the Health Information Resource Center (HIRC). The goal of the new program is to recognize the world’s best health information published on the Internet

IEHP’s organizational Web site, www.iehp.org, received a Silver Award and its Rad Rider-Safety Cycler Web site, www.radrider.com, earned a Merit Award.

"Nowhere is a ‘seal of quality’ needed more than for health information on the Internet’s World Wide Web," contended HIRC spokesperson Chris Behrend. "According to Business Week, more than 17 million people in the U.S. have looked up medical data online this year. That’s up over 35% from 1997. Recent estimates put the number of health-related Web sites at 15,000 and growing. Yet there is no recognition of the quality of information on these sites. The new WWW Health Awards is designed to assist consumers and health professionals in deciding which sites offer accurate, up-to-date information," stated Behrend.

There were nearly 300 entries submitted for the 1999 WWW Health Awards. Other winners included the American Psychological Association, the American Red Cross, Drugstore.com, Kaiser Permanente HMO, the Mayo Clinic, the National Institute on Aging, the National PTA, Rodale Press, the Texas Department of Health, and the University of Wisconsin.

"IEHP is committed to quality preventative and total health care services for our members," said Richard Bruno, IEHP’s chief executive officer. "Winning these two major awards for our health information Web sites is a step towards our goal to become the best of any California health plan – big or small - at delivering wellness services direct to our members."

IEHP is a non-profit public entity created by the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino to provide higher quality health care in a cost-effective manner to their Medi-Cal beneficiaries. More than two-thirds of IEHP’s 162,000 members are children. IEHP is the 14^th largest HMO in California and the only one based in the Inland Empire.

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