Client profile: CoherentRx uses visual display to improve retention of doctor-patient communication
Editor's Note: This is the latest in a series of Online Tech client profiles.
How do you move from founding Hour Detroit magazine to being the president of Spin Media to starting an app development company to Apple requesting healthcare-focused iPad apps that are saving lives via improved communications?
"Either way, you're still trying to get people to respond and to react to something,'' said Tom Hartle, founder and CEO of CoherentRx. "Whether it's publishing an app, a magazine or website, the business models can be nearly the same. The format is a thing by which you deliver the content. A lot of people really don't have the true will or temperament to succeed in other formats."
Referring to David and Goliath matchups between giants and startups, Hartle argues smaller companies can usually "out-maneuver'' bigger ones "because we can out engineer bigger companies."
"The reason Hour Detroit was successful was we leveraged new technologies in desktop publishing and distribution outlets. At the time (1994), desktop publishing technology was new. Our competition was tied to their old expensive publishing infrastructure," Hartle said. ""Because the technology is always changing, publishers live in a constant state apprenticeship, with the master being technology. Content is not king. Technology and delivery formats are.''
With CoherentRx, based in Troy, Mich., new iPad apps are helping doctors show and tell treatment information to patients, making a major difference on the overall hospital experience.
Typically, hospital patients retain just 10-15 percent of the information they hear from medical staff, compounded by high levels of anxiety. Showing patients images on an iPad rapidly increases those retention levels while reducing anxiety, he said.
To keep all that data safe and secure, CoherentRx partnered with Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Online Tech to make sure sensitive protected health information (PHI) would be secure and accessible through its encrypted, compliant cloud.
Online Tech recently announced "end-to-end'' encryption, keeping data securely encrypted at every step of the way from the time it leaves its origination point through transit to the encrypted cloud services where it is stored.
"Online Tech is extremely responsive and very approachable,'' Hartle said. "Unlike most tech companies, they also have a human touch that's old school: if you picked up a phone to call, they are there. They're on top of it, in front of it, to the sides and below. It was kind of a full circle.''
Organizations in regulated industries that must ensure the protection of confidential information often avoid cloud computing because they have incomplete encryption strategies that leave them in non-compliance and at risk of embarrassing, costly security breaches.
The common areas of non-compliance for most hosting providers are due to a lack of encryption for data in the cloud and for backup of that data. The cloud infrastructure and backup techniques used by the vast majority of companies today leave patient and customer information vulnerable.
For more on Online Tech's encrypted, compliant cloud solution, visit here. For more information about Online Tech's encrypted backup solutions, visit here.