Reflections from American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and ATA’s Venture Summit
Zansors was honored to attend our first American Telemedicine Association (ATA) annual event in Baltimore over three days (May 18 – 20) – we’re coming back next year! Not only was Zansors invited by both the ATA and law firm Jones Day to be part of their invite-only ATA Venture Summit but Zansors had a booth as part of the ATA’s Startup Zone on the exhibitor floor. And Zansors was featured in ATA’s “Innovation Spotlight” track to share our telemedicine solution – always fun to talk about our sensors, algorithms, and mobile apps. ATA was like a “coming out” party for us. Zansors wants our technologies and innovations to help “Know Yourself.”
The ATA Venture Summit was on Sunday May 18. The event brought together select early stage companies to sit at tables with mentors who have been successful or are subject matter experts. Zansors joined two other great startups at our table – Wellpepper Inc. and CMT Corp. – who focused on software while Zansors was more about hardware sensors. Our subject matter experts came from Fusion, Jones Day, Madrona Venture Group, and Alan Pitts, M.D. Zansors was able to share its story in 10-15 minutes with the table and then get unfiltered advice with no sugar-coating. Constructive criticism on sensor costs, market launch as B2B or B2C, patents and freedom-to-operate, etc. came from the table experts. It’s rare to get someone to listen more than 3 minutes and even more rare to get free advice. There was a feeling of genuine, smart advice from the experts whether or not they liked the venture. Zansors was fortunate to listen and learn and fine-tune our sensor story. Later during the Venture Summit, Zansors was able to have one-on-one sessions with companies like high-growth company Specialists On Call, private equity investor Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stow, and leading $2B+ company Stericycle. Zansors again made new connections to these individuals who wanted to open doors for early stage company, Zansors. All in all, ATA’s Venture Summit was invaluable and thanks to all.
Telemedicine has so many definitions. But if you walked the trade floor or attended the different sessions, you knew this was a key conference dealing with health and technology. ATA made sure that there were tracks covering a wide range of telemedicine topics like home telehealth, remote monitoring, international, mHealth, TeleICU, TeleRehabilitation, Ocular Telehealth, TeleMental Health, technology, pediatric Telehealth, Telehealth nursing, Teledermatolgy, human factors, and business & finance. Yes, the keynote speeches at ATA were amazing but even more exciting was the vibe people gave off feeling that telemedicine is closer to being implemented now than any time before. ATA attendees could sense that telemedicine has moved from simmering to near-boiling hot! The end goal is that telemedicine will improve outcomes for patients and consumers and also save costs.
Great companies were represented at the talk and on the exhibitor floor. We can’t list all of them but you found Cisco, Philips, Humana, UnitedHealthcare, Department of Defense, Intel, Alere, AMC Health, etc. There were great startup companies in the Startup Zone near the Zansors booth like CaptureProof, PT Pal, and 3Derm. We saw great technologies also by the different companies participating in the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE. In other words, we were surrounded by great tech geeks.
Our mission was to talk about Zansors’ telemedicine solution throughout the ATA show but especially during the ATA “Innovation Spotlight.” Specifically, we wanted to share how our telemedicine solution is helping breast cancer survivors now facing lymphedema. In our telemedicine solution, we have both wearable sensors for sleep and we have a mobile app connecting to our cloud analytics database with the right HIPAA protection and security. This telemedicine solution helps improve quality of life since currently lymphedema patients rely on paper-pen questionnaires. We are fortunate that this telemedicine digital system is supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and NCI’s SBIR Contract program.
It was exciting to have a booth because people stopped by to learn about our telemedicine solution while others just stopped by to pick up our “Bed By 10” button or our “Know Yourself” sticker. We learned that you can meet great contacts and even learn from a discussion. We also learned that we should have some candy at our booth next year.
We should also tell you that we now know why Baltimore is called “Charm City.” The location and weather were perfect since the event was at the Baltimore Convention Center near the inner harbor bay and we experienced sunshine in the high 60's. You can eat along the water and also people watch. So many choices of restaurants within walking distance of the ATA show.
By next year’s ATA's conference, in Los Angeles, Zansors will have grown by then and we want to shape the future of technology, innovation, and health. We hope we can tell you more about our technologies like sensors, MEMS, algorithms, analytics, apps, microfluidics, etc. More importantly, we want to tell you how the Zansors technologies help people and their quality of life with cancer, diabetes, sleep, heart disease, etc. And we will have candy at our expanded booth.
Bravo and thanks to ATA and all of the participants and people we met. “Know yourself.”