MedRespond CEO Ginny Pribanic Featured Speaker at Annual She Creates Conference honoring women entrepreneurs – October 18th.

The University of Pittsburgh’s Innovation Institute, School of Computer Science, Pitt Career and Development Center, CMU Project Olympus, Chatham, and Innovation Works are proud to present a panel of women CEO’s from Pittsburgh’s leading startups.

They will discuss the challenges around women as tech leaders and as founders in startups including the gender investment gap and the lack of women in founder-roles.  Learn and get inspired by these ambitious female founders and learn why you should be a part of the revolution!

MedRespond is finalist in the Tech 50 Innovator of the Year in Healthcare Technology

The Pittsburgh Technology Council announced this year’s finalists for its annual Tech 50 Awards Friday and some fall into a newly created category — artificial intelligence and robotics, according to a press release from the Pittsburgh Technology Council.

The awards event, planned for Oct. 25 at the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh, honors the region’s top technology companies and technology executives.

“For more than two decades, Tech 50 has been honoring the Pittsburgh region’s most dynamic companies, which are solving some of the world’s toughest and most pressing challenges,” said PTC President and CEO Audrey Russo in a prepared statement. “Each year, our group of finalists continues to push the boundaries of technology and innovation.”

Tech 50 allows Pittsburgh to celebrate the workers in its technology community, Russo said in the release.

Finalists for Innovator of the Year in the Health Information Technology category are Arcadia Healthcare Solutions, Health Monitoring, Medrespond, Omnicell, Sentact and TeleTracking Technologies.

Finalists in the manufacturing category are Interphase Materials, Kurt J. Lesker Co. and WATT Fuel Cell.

In the consulting and services category, finalists for Solution Provider of the Year are Accion Labs, Aspirant, CyberCrunch, DMLogic LLC, IQ Inc., Larson Design GroupPrecision Business SolutionsSDLC Partners and Truefit.

Finalists for Innovative Technologies Solution Provider of the Year are AquaSource Technologies Corp.,Diamond KineticsEthical IntruderFirst Insight, GrayMatter, JazzHR, Powercast Corp., TrademarkVision and Voci Technologies Inc.

Innovator of the Year finalists for Life Sciences are Ariel Precision Medicine, ChemImage, Forest Devices and Philips.

In the newest category, Innovator of the Year in AI and Robotics, finalists are Adrich, Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing, Aurora Innovation, Bossa Nova, Petuum and Rapid Flow Technologies.

CEO of the Year finalists include Brendan Carroll of Skycision, Teresa Huber of Intervala, Jessica Gibson of Ariel Precision Medicine, Jim Gillespie of GrayMatter, Noah Snyder of Interphase Materials and Barbara VanKirk of IQ Inc.

Culture Leader of the Year finalists are Excel4Apps, Net Health, Plus Consulting, TeleTracking Technologies, TiER1 Performance Solutions and Virtual Clarity.

Startup of the Year finalists are 412 Food Rescue, BlastPoint Inc., Caregogi, Flexable, HiberSense Inc., Platypus PPC and RistCall LLC. 

MedRespond CEO, Virginia Pribanic

Virginia Pribanic

President and CEO, Medrespond, LLC

 

LISTEN TO THE MARKET

“I had a great experience with my first venture, because it failed! Listen to what the marketplace tells you – this is most critical, and it’s the reason my first venture failed. Listen carefully, this will keep you from making most mistakes.”

KNOW YOUR MISSION

“Our mission is to help patients and their families. It’s that simple. We give patients and families the answers they need 24/7. We start with existing patient materials and transform them into a simulated video conversation with trusted medical professionals. Our goal was not to make patients happy about what medical procedures or surgeries they’re about to undergo, or to minimize it, but to tell them the truth in clear, easily understood language to reduce their stress levels – that can be a critical factor in improving long-term success and outcomes. By being very, very clear about your mission you always have a touch point to ensure that you are focused. And being focused is a must in a start-up company.”

MEASURE SUCCESS METRICS

“It’s important to set success measures and gauge your program/product as it rolls out. It’s not only important for continuous product improvement, but also for your end customer. It’s about making your product better and better and developing outcomes for greater and greater impact.”

BE READY TO ACT

“Seize opportunities as they present themselves. One example for us was gaining the honest, raw videotaped testimony of a person who had only four days to prepare for major surgery, and who had relied on Medrespond videos to help get him through it.”

GET IT RIGHT, THEN EXPAND

“It’s important to establish yourself well in your home base first, before expanding into new markets. That’s why Pittsburgh is a special place for entrepreneurs, because of its manageable size, CMU and Pitt research and resources, and cultural amenities. It’s a big small town where you can develop a good reputation and have it spread easily. This place has heart.”

FIND A PARTNER

“Entrepreneurs need a partner, a champion to inspire and guide them. Jim Jordan at PLSG has been that for us – an invaluable resource, helping us identify our value proposition, working through roadblocks. He really cares about our success. The value of PLSG goes well beyond the money. PLSG has been an investor for us, a provider of office space, expert advice, guidance for grant opportunities, and networking, creating a community where we can operate and grow.”

KNOW YOURSELF

“Do something important and love what you do. That’s the key to everything.”

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MedRespond to take up space in Global Center

A Pittsburgh-based online health care communications company is opening a Cleveland office in the Global Center for Health Innovation.MedRespond, which won first place at the inaugural Medical Capital Innovation Competition in April, combines a…

A Pittsburgh-based online health care communications company is opening a Cleveland office in the Global Center for Health Innovation.

MedRespond, which won first place at the inaugural Medical Capital Innovation Competition in April, combines artificial intelligence, search and streaming media to enable health care enterprises to provide personalized, relevant and scalable engagement solutions for their patients, clients and their families, according to a news release.

MedRespond anticipates hiring several employees with its expansion to the Global Center, focusing on expanding its content development resources, according to the release.

"The reaction from the Cleveland medical community to MedRespond's conversational patient engagement platform has been tremendous," said Virginia Flavin Pribanic, MedRespond's president and CEO, in a prepared statement. "Our Cleveland office will allow us to focus on the development of multiple client projects and connect with Northeast Ohio's vibrant entrepreneurial community."

The Medical Capital Innovation Competition awarded MedRespond $50,000 and access to health care mentors, industry collaborators and customers in Cleveland. Since the grand prize win in April, Pribanic has worked with Matthew Miller, BioEnterprise's vice president of health information technology and services, to lay the foundation for MedRespond in Cleveland.

BioEnterprise recently was named to lead strategy at the Global Center.

"BioEnterprise is thrilled to welcome MedRespond to Cleveland and to the Global Center for Health Innovation," said Aram Nerpouni, president and CEO of BioEnterprise, in a prepared statement. "Its presence here will accelerate the company's further growth and development as it gains increased access to Northeast Ohio's asset-rich biomedical and health care industry."

 

MedRespond named in Pittsburgh Tech 50 finalists

The Pittsburgh Technology Council announced on Monday the finalists for the Tech 50 Awards.

The awards recognize excellence in the Pittsburgh region. They will be handed out during a ceremony Oct. 12 at the Wyndham Grand Hotel.

Here are the nominees:

CEO of the Year

Solution Provider of the Year, Consulting and IT services

  • Accion Labs
  • Continuum Managed Services
  • Ethical Intruder
  • IQ Inc.
  • LunaMetrics
  • Plus Consulting
  • SDLC Partners
  • Summa

Culture Leader of the Year

  • Autosoft
  • Confluence
  • Excel4Apps
  • Summa
  • Tier1 Performance Solutions

Innovator of the Year, Consumer Products

  • Diamond Kinetics
  • Philips
  • Schell Games
  • Simcoach Games
  • UPMC Health Plan

Solution Provider of the Year, Innovative Technology

  • 412 Food Rescue
  • ANSYS Inc.
  • Cybergenetics
  • GrayMatter
  • JazzHR
  • LUMA Institute
  • Savvior
  • Truefit

Innovator of the Year, Health IT

  • Careform
  • Health-Monitoring
  • Iagnosis Inc.
  • M*Modal
  • MedRespond

  • Net Health

Innovator of the Year, Life Sciences

  • Better Body Image Corp.
  • Carmell Therapeutics
  • Cook Myosite
  • Foundation Radiology
  • Omnicell Inc.

Innovator of the Year: Manufacturing - The Kurt J. Lesker III Award for Excellence

  • Boxzy
  • Hanel Storage Systems
  • Iam Robotics
  • Interphase Materials
  • MSA The Safety Co.
  • Optimus Technologies

Start-Up of the Year

  • Angler Labs
  • Ariel Precision Medicine
  • ForAllSecure
  • Forest Devices
  • Peca Labs
  • Skycision
  • Small Change
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MedRespond Takes Top Honors at Medical Capital Innovation Competition

Cleveland, Ohio  April 26, 2107   MedRespond was selected First Place winner in the Open Division at the inaugural Medical Capital Innovation Competition “All Things Data in Healthcare” The competition, sponsored by  Cuyahoga CountyBioEnterpriseHIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) and The Global Center for Health Innovation (GCHI), selected awardees from commerce and academia. The competition, held at the HIMMS Innovation Center at the Global Center for Health Innovation featured 27 invited juried participants, chosen for the how they apply big data to meet critical healthcare challenges.

Virginia F. Pribanic, MedRespond CEO, said, “I am especially honored for MedRespond to be chosen for this award.  The selection committee chose a truly impressive slate of entrepreneurs to participate in the program.  The BioEnterprise team, HIMSS , the Global Center and the sponsors put together a very  meaningful two days in Cleveland.”

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MMG Introduces Enhanced Education Platform for Clinical Trials, Custom Conversations

ROCKVILLE, Md., March 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — MMG, a full-service global health communications company specializing in clinicaltrial patient recruitment and retention, today announced an exclusive strategic partnership with online healthcare communications company MedRespond to introduce a new technological advancement in clinical-trial patient education, Custom Conversations.

Custom Conversations harnesses the engaging power of video, the specificity of natural language query capabilities, and the access of the Internet to achieve superior patient participation in clinical trials. The platform allows patients and caregivers exploring clinical trial options to drive a customized online learning interaction that fulfills their unique information needs. Using a new, advanced synthetic interview technology developed by Carnegie Mellon University, patients also can ask questions in their own words, to which they will receive prerecorded video responses which have been pre-approved by the study’s institutional review board or ethics committee.

Earlier this month, Custom Conversations won the Patient Idol innovation competition at the Patients as Partners Conference in Philadelphia. A panel of judges from the clinical organizations of four major pharmaceutical companies selected the competition’s winner from among four presentations.

“MMG is proud to be partnering with MedRespond to bring Custom Conversations to clinical trials. Pilot programs have shown an exponential boost in enrollment rates compared to trials for which patients received only traditional study educational materials. Feedback from key stakeholder categories — patients, trial sites and study sponsors — validate our belief that Custom Conversations is a groundbreaking development in clinical trial engagement,” said Helen West, VP of strategic development for MMG.

The Custom Conversations platform can be leveraged throughout the study education continuum — from first learning about a study, to prequalification and screening, and for the duration of the study, which can help to fortify retention. For the study’s sponsors, the platform’s anonymous activity data provides a first-hand view into patients’ and caregivers’ communication needs and mindsets, which MMG’s specialists use to refine recruitment and retention strategies and messaging.

“We see a tremendous opportunity for the Custom Conversations platform in the clinical trial space, and we are excited to partner with MMG in leveraging this proprietary technology,” said Ginny Flavin-Pribanic, CEO of MedRespond. “Use of this platform is proving to be a game changer in other healthcare sectors, and we anticipate a similar impact for clinical trial recruitment.”

About MedRespond

MedRespond is an online health care communications company that combines artificial intelligence, search, and streaming media so that health care enterprises can provide interactive, personalized, relevant, and inexpensive communication solutions for their customers, patients, and clients — and health care training solutions for their personnel.

About MMG

MMG is the premier global health communications organization specializing in patient recruitment and retention. With experience in more than 70 countries and across a vast range of therapeutic areas, populations, and study types, MMG provides strategies specially crafted for study teams and patient populations while delivering the best return on investment for the sponsor. MMG, a Ketchum company, is a part of Diversified Agency Services, a division of Omnicom Group Inc.

About Ketchum

Ketchum is a leading global communications firm with operations in more than 70 countries across six continents. The winner of 11 Cannes Lions and an unprecedented three consecutive PRWeek Campaign of the Year Awards, Ketchum partners with clients to deliver strategic programming, game-changing creative and measurable results that build brands and reputations. For more information on Ketchum, a part of Diversified Agency Services, a division of Omnicom Group Inc., visit www.ketchum.com.

About Diversified Agency Services

Diversified Agency Services (DAS), a division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) (www.omnicomgroup.com), manages Omnicom’s holdings in a variety of marketing communications disciplines. DAS includes over 200 companies, which operate through a combination of networks and regional organizations, serving international and local clients through more than 700 offices in 71 countries.