Company
ABP Technology was started by Andrew Barnett, MD, a practicing surgeon who’s been involved with information technology for many years. He started his first computer company in the late 1980’s. Trained and practicing in the heart of Silicon Valley, he put together a technical team to address inefficiencies in healthcare by crafting creative solutions using state of the art technology.
The first challenge was the platform. How to produce applications which are easy to use, easy to implement, and easy to afford. That model already exists – it’s called the Cloud. Since the late 1990’s, technology leaders have steadily moved from the desktop to the internet – Software as a Service (SaaS). Healthcare technology has lagged. Why? Concerns about privacy! HIPAA is very clear – Protected Health Information has to be protected. We did that carefully through a series of steps.
- First step- find the right team of engineers. We did, with over a decade of expertise in cloud privacy, including working with companies like American Express.
- Second step – get them interested. Turns out that wasn’t difficult. They are brilliant folks who signed on because they want to make a difference. They respect the importance of what they are doing—using modern software tools and infrastructure to make healthcare work better.
- Third step – solve the problem. Six months and thousands of hours later, they did it. Not only a brilliant platform but a beautiful application that works really well – SDMS!
- Fourth step – prove the concept. Wow – did we ever. Easy to use? How about 30 minutes to become an expert. Easy to implement? 3 ½ weeks after starting in a major hospital we had over 90% of all doctor’s offices fully converted to the system and happily using it. Easy to afford? How about no start-up costs, no equipment to buy, no training costs, no long term contracts… and after 3 months, the hospital reduces two FTE’s (full time employees) based on the efficiency of SDMS. ROI – is immediate and significant.
What’s next? We are listening to our users and they are pointing us to the next challenge, and the challenge after that.
And what about the surgeon who started ABP Technology? He’s still practicing, very involved with ABP Technology, really proud of what we’ve accomplished, and excited about what lies ahead.