rural clinics in Kenya about three years ago, and expanded into healthcare settings in Zanzibar last year. It has donated the actual equipment to governments in the countries it serves, but charges for the support and services to keep it running. It is also expanding to the Worcester Free Clinics in Massachusetts.
Wang says its application differs from traditional U.S.-based electronic medical records in that the focus is on improving diagnoses and care, as opposed to streamlining billing.
“The issue is not how you’re going to bill a patient, its how you’re going to track the care of patients,” Wang says. “Electronic medical records have not had easy adoption. There’s been a lot of resistance to it. We want our technology to be really advanced, but so simple to use that it’s unobtrusive.”
Technologists at Vecna are working on improving the technology, with a hackathon being held today at the company’s headquarters.
“We’re moving into bringing that technology back here and are realizing there’s a real application to it,” Wang says. “There are a lot of opportunities in the pipeline, and some other African countries we are thinking about spreading to.”
