BitArmor, a provider of data encryption software, announced earlier this fall that it was named in the 2009 Gartner Group Magic Quadrant for Mobile Data Protection. This is a pretty big deal because the Magic Quadrant is viewed by many IT vendors—and IT buyers—as the Holy Grail in terms of establishing credibility in the information technology world. BitArmor’s CEO Patrick McGregor stated in a company press release:
“We believe that being positioned among industry leaders in the Magic Quadrant is a testament to BitArmor’s unique approach to data protection: actually protecting the data itself, rather than protecting a particular device or network.”
Gartner Group uses the Magic Quadrant tool to give IT buyers the ability to evaluate vendors in a particular technology market. Using completeness of vision and ability to execute as criteria, Gartner places vendors in one of four quadrants: Challengers, Niche Players, Visionaries and Leaders.
The Magic Quadrant report is a heavily referenced source of research for IT buyers. In fact, one of the criticisms of this report is that buyers often base purchasing decisions solely on which vendors are listed in the “Leaders” quadrant. However, Gartner Group goes out of its way to warn its subscribers that the report is not meant to be a specific guide to action, but rather simply a research tool to be used as part of a comprehensive evaluation process.
Making the grade as a serious player in Gartner Group’s eyes is not only great for BitArmor, but for Pittsburgh startups in general, as it brings positive visibility on a worldwide scale to the region’s entrepreneurial environment.
The Marines have a famous motto that states “no man left behind.” ClearCount Medical Solutions, a five year old Pittsburgh startup that recently secured $3.4 million in funding, is trying to help hospitals adopt a similar mantra: no sponge left behind.
“Retained foreign objects” is the term for items such as surgical sponges and instruments accidentally left inside a patient following a surgical procedure. This is clearly a problem, as a study published in 2003 by The New England Journal of Medicine found that approximately 4,000 sponges are accidentally left inside patients every year. In the majority of cases, the cause is a counting error by medical staff.
To help make this problem go away, ClearCount has created the SmartSponge System, which uses a RFID (radio frequency identification) chip embedded in the sponges so that they can be tracked in two ways: counted before they are used and then accounted for at the surgery’s close. The company is garnering a lot of positive buzz, including an article in Time magazine in June.
At first glance, you would think hospitals would balk at the need to pay for such a system, figuring they could just try to implement a more failsafe manual counting system. But, there’s a lot at stake here. For starters, malpractice litigation never seems to do anything but increase, so implementing technology like this seems like a reliable way to reduce lawsuits related to sponges left behind. Then there’s the recent announcement by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid that it will no longer cover the costs of 27 “Never events.” “Never events” are preventable injuries and infections that occur during hospital stays and, you guessed it, accidentally leaving a sponge behind after surgery is one of them. The average Medicare payment for admissions in which an object is left behind after surgery is over $63,000, so in addition to the obvious quality-of-care issue, it would seem financially prudent for hospitals to take a close look at ClearCount, one of only two companies currently providing RF-detectable surgical sponge technology.
With the recent funding and a solid product that appears to address a real market need, the future looks bright for ClearCount and, of course, for surgical patients.
