Mobile health

Sarasota executive Trey Lauderdale found himself in an unusual spot recently when he combed through some IT health care industry websites.

The co-founder of Voalte, one of the fastest-growing startups of the last decade in the Sarasota-Bradenton region, Lauderdale is used to being the neophyte. But then he read blog posts that spoke of Voalte — which uses smartphone technology to help nurses and hospital employees improve communications — like an industry giant.

Now Voalte is the company other startups emulate: validation for Lauderdale. “We are serious players. We are not in this to be second place in mHealth,” says Lauderdale, referring to industry lingo for mobile health, which is health care run through mobile devices. “There are a lot of companies that do what we do, but no one does it all like us.”

The blog posts illustrate how far Voalte has come since it was founded in 2008. That shift in Voalte's industry perception, combined with a recent $36 million investment commitment from a New York private equity firm, is also a big deal for the Sarasota-Bradenton business community.

So big that several industry leaders and economic development officials have met multiple times to brainstorm about how to turn the Sarasota-Bradenton business community into an mHealth Mecca.

In addition to Voalte, other mHealth companies with a Sarasota headquarters include IntelligentM and BioLucid. IntelligentM developed a digital wristband that monitors doctors' hand hygiene. BioLucid builds interactive and holographic software apps for doctors and other medical professionals.

BioLucid, like Voalte, has been growing and hiring. And like Lauderdale, BioLucid co-founder Jeff Hazelton is one of the executives who pushes the local mHealth industry's potential. “It's definitely an area that's ready to explode,” says Hazelton, who spoke at an mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C., in December.

Of course, building a scalable high-tech cluster of mHealth companies in Sarasota, a business community known for hospitality, tourism and real estate, isn't without challenges. Hiring top people is one challenge at the forefront, an obstacle with which Voalte, BioLucid and others regularly grapple.

Yet the idea, at least based on how two other cities have created niche health care sectors, has some merit. Those cities, Kansas City and Madison, Wis., developed clusters of electronic medical records businesses and hospital software, respectively. The catalyst in Kansas City is Cerner, a $2.9 billion business with more than 9,000 clients worldwide. In Madison and Verona, Wis., a nearby suburb, it's Epic, a $1.6 billon firm that provides software to large health care facilities.

Asks Lauderdale: “What's to stop us from making Sarasota the epicenter of the mHealth universe?”

At least four other well-connected industry executives share that optimism. Two of those players, Sam Stern and Dr. Caroline Popper, have spoken directly with Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County President and CEO Mark Huey about how that agency can promote mHealth locally.

A marketing and branding executive, Stern founded Modallic, a firm devoted to mHealth and health care IT marketing. Popper is president of Sarasota-based Popper and Co., a 10-employee health care consulting firm that's worked with several mHealth businesses, including IntelligentM.

“The story is more than mHealth,” says Popper, an internist and pathologist who has a master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. “This is the convergence of digital health care. I see no reason why it can't happen here.”

Popper's business has clients in the U.S. and abroad, and not all of them are in digital or mHealth. But Stern, whose other firm, CAP Brand Marketing, had Voalte as a client in the startup's early days, launched Modallic last year strictly on the premise that mHealth is a major industry-shifting trend. He now has mHealth clients in India and Los Angeles, but, like some others, believes Sarasota can cultivate a groundswell of mHealth support.

“It's the perfect storm for this right now,” says Stern. “We are always looking for an answer to the question of why companies should come here. Everyone has beaches. Now we have an opportunity that other communities don't.”

At a glance: IT Health Care
Technology forces in health care could have a dramatic impact on the industry over the next decade. Some growth projections include:

mHealth: The mobile health market is expected to grow at a 32.3% compound annual growth rate and surpass $58.8 billion by 2020. The industry was worth about $718 million in 2011. (Sources: Allied Market Research, MobiHealthNews)
Telehealth: The worldwide market for long distance health care aided by technology could grow from $440.6 million in 2013 to $4.5 billion by 2018. The number of patients who use telehealth services is expected to rise from 350,000 in 2013 to 7 million in 2018. (Source: IHS)
Electronic Medical Records: The EMR market surpassed $20 billion in 2012, up 15% from $17.9 billion in 2011, one report states. A separate study projects the EMR industry will have a compound annual growth rate of 7.85% from 2011 to 2015.

Three Sarasota-based mHealth companies:

Company: Voalte
President: Trey Lauderdale
Year founded: 2008
Employees: About 130
Revenues: Firm no longer discloses annual sales figures, but it reported around $10 million a year in 2012.
Products/Service: Voalte addresses the Holy Grail for hospitals: How to improve productivity and efficiency without sacrificing patient care. For example, nurses can walk up to five miles during a regular hospital shift, studies show. It's a bad use of time, and also brings up fatigue issues.
The software at Voalte, which stands for voice, alarm and text, works on iPhones and other smartphones. The system basically becomes a central desk for nurses to receive and send messages. Nurses can text each other or supervisors on patient care or other issues.
Outlook: The company has about 100 hospital clients, where at least 35,000 caregivers use its products and technology every day. But with more than 5,500 hospitals nationwide, there's a lot of room to grow.
Voalte recently announced a $36 million capital investment from White Plains, N.Y.-based Bedford Funding, a $1.4 billion technology-focused private equity firm. Lauderdale says that will help the company develop new products and enter new markets. On products, the target list includes a system for doctors, in and out of hospitals.
Another key part of the investment will be to boost Voalte's fast-growing payroll. Says Lauderdale: “In order to grow and become a great company we have to find great people.”
He expects Voalte will hire at least 100 people over the next year. That's both to sustain the growth and make sure personalized customer service isn't sacrificed because of it. “We've been hiring in front of the growth,” says Lauderdale. “We are bigger than we need to be.”

Company:BioLucid
President: Jeff Hazelton
Year founded: 2011
Employees: About 30
Revenues: Doesn't disclose.
Products/Service: Hazelton says the firm is a blend of creativity and technology that creates digital medical display apps. One product is a holographic projection float shown on a high-definition screen. So a doctor talking to a patient about a liver procedure, for instance, can provide a 3-D preview on an iPad of what's going to happen. Several products the company has developed are patent-pending.
Outlook: BioLucid's clients are a range of doctors and physician groups, pharmaceutical companies, medical device firms and biotech businesses. That wide market opportunity, says Hazelton, is one reason why the company is in constant product development mode. “We are building a lot now,” he says, “and we need to build a lot more.”
About half the firm's employees are graduates of the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. They work on everything from 3-D animation to interface design to software programs. The firm recently hired five more people, including two for management positions. One of the new managers previously worked in Utah for video game maker Electronic Arts, and the other worked for a Microsoft partner in Seattle.
BioLucid recently expanded its office space in the HuB, a downtown Sarasota business incubator, from about 4,000 square feet to 6,000 square feet to accommodate potential growth. “Things are going really well,” says Hazelton. “The market is moving really fast.”

Company: IntelligentM
Principals: Seth Freedman, Dave Mullinix and Dr. Andrew Fine.
Year founded: 2010
Employees: Four full-time; four part-time.
Revenues: Doesn't disclose. Firm projects $3.5 million to $5 million in sales by the end of 2014.
Products/Service: The IntelligentM wristband tracks when, and how well, a physician washes his or her hands. The band vibrates once for a good wash and three times if the wash isn't good enough. The band will also vibrate if the wearer enters a room to perform a procedure and hasn't washed his or her hands.
The company uses Radio Frequency Identification technology, which is built to read data from far away — though IntelligentM flips the RFID technology to read single tags at small distances. The business model is to build volume through a software as a service approach and charge per user within a hospital or medical facility.
Outlook: Industry data on the depth and severity of poor hand hygiene equates to a market opportunity. One startling fact: One in 20 hospital patients will get an infection after being admitted, and 50% of those stem from poor hand hygiene. The potential market for IntelligentM stretches from hospitals to medical practices to nursing home facilities. “We've got a solution that will address a major problem,” co-founder Seth Freedman told the Business Observer in an interview late last year.