Good Chip Nominees
Carematic Systems, Inc.
Deyeagnostics
Take One Digital Media
Call it the ultimate fear of Big Brother gone bad: that technologies used in industries defined by person-to-person interactions could lead to a less personal application replacing the essence of a company’s offering.
However, Carematic Systems believes it has found a way to marry high tech with high touch. And customers are agreeing.
A web-based service that collects data on the health, daily activities, and multiple other elements associated with care for adults with developmental disabilities, Carematic Care Center allows care givers in group homes, assisted employment and community settings to manage a comprehensive life plan for each individual served. The software tracks details on each individual in the program, allowing providers to ensure individuals receive the right services and desired outcomes, receive quality care and enact quality processes and generate reports required by regulatory agencies to help them remain in compliance. Anyone involved with service delivery, from nurses to coordinators to family members, can implement their part and monitor results in real time.
The result is a system that, ultimately, makes for better care and progress for individuals.
Says President/CEO Scott Carson, a former computer science professor at the University of Maryland, “We target a traditionally low-tech market so we need to teach them ways of doing things a little differently. We take a labor-intensive operation and make it easier, faster, and less expensive, and in the process the provider organizations can deliver on their commitments to the people they serve.”
Carematic Systems has found a niche in the fragmented market for group homes for this special population. Estimated to be worth $3.5 billion nationwide, the market for this type of software is perceived as too small for bigger firms that focus on hospitals and other acute care settings. With several organizational customers that serve more than 1,000 adult recipients of care, the company is well positioned to break out of Maryland and target other areas ripe for the Carematic Care Center.
“Our customers see the tangible benefits of less dependence on paper-based processes, greater accuracy, and ultimately the time saved means more time goes to fulfilling the mission of giving care,” Carson says. “What we have found equally satisfying is that the system connects our organizational customers in a new way through better communication, improved delivery and compliance, and a shared sense of purpose.”
Deyeagnostics
A needle in the eye to manage eye disease, or some software-based testing for early detection and possible prevention? Seems like an easy choice, which should bode well for Deyeagnostics of Annapolis.
The firm’s software aims to detect conditions that lead to blindness and visual impairments such as macular degeneration (central vision loss) and glaucoma (peripheral vision loss). It measures and records up to 1,000 data points on visual acuity, visual field, contrast sensitivity, color, depth perception, and Amsler Grid. Data is then sent via the Web to a central database that can compare an individual’s vision between both eyes relative to each other, with readings in previous years, and with the vision of others. Users can tell if one eye is overcompensating for the other or if there are other declining trends, which gives them the knowledge they need to manage their conditions with medicine and maintain their eyesight. Without it, many undergo the slow imperceptible changes that can result in significant and irreversible damage. Eye drop medicine can treat and control these diseases if they are diagnosed early enough, although in some cases the more advanced treatment requires the injection via needle.
The firm’s founder knows something about this. Told by his doctor that he suffered from macular degeneration, a loss of vision in his right eye due to thinning of its inner lining, the biomedical engineer in Nick Sloan knew that prevention is always better than a cure. Even though his vision loss was too advanced for him to benefit, Nick set out to develop the software so that others can identify potential problems and avoid permanent vision loss.
Deyeagnostics plans to move forward and market the technology in 2008 and hopefully alleviate the suffering of some of the 75,000 people a year in the U.S. who hear the bad news about their irreversible eye conditions. Arising from one man’s personal disadvantage, Deyeagnostics is poised to deliver a potential solution to a vexing public health problem.
Founder Nick Sloan
How many companies can say they jumped in a lake for their customer? And a cold one at that?
Take One Digital Media can. In fact, they even convinced others to do so in support of Special Olympics Maryland, beneficiary of the annual Polar Bear 
Plunge fundraiser at Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis. To help market the Plunge, Take One staff traveled to Churchill, Manitoba, a small Canadian town known as the polar bear capital because that’s where the animals gather in early winter as they wait for the Hudson Bay to freeze (then they can travel across it in search of seals). Intent on shooting a promotional video of the town and its impressions of the Maryland Plunge, the staff of Take One ended up corralling about 200 townspeople on the beach and got many of them to conduct their own Plunge. Some even plan to attend the next Special Olympics Maryland Plunge in January.
While there was some serendipity involved there, positive results often occur when Take One gets engaged. These stem from an unassailable work ethic that delivers video, Web, multi-media and print-based marketing materials. Non-profits like the Special Olympics Maryland account for a sizable part of the company’s time, either through discounted or donated services. In some cases staff donate their personal time to create materials for special causes, and the company then contributes the computer time and even hosts sites on its Web server for free.
An extensive list of commercial customers provides a substantial amount of repeat business for the seven-person, 26 year-old company. However, its non-profit work is an important part of the business because it means the company is intimately connected to the community, which is exactly where it wants to be.
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