HealthCamp

Date: Friday, July 29, 2011, 6:00am EDT

TAMPA — Technology that developers contend will lower the cost of health care while improving the quality of care takes center stage at HealthCamp Florida.

Presenters at the first event of its kind in the state will focus on innovations, which are the key to reducing health care costs that take up a lion’s share of any company’s budget, said Joel Lopez, HealthCamp Florida co-founder and managing director of 2Z Consulting LLC.

“Florida is one of the leading sources of innovation in health care, but no one does a good job of highlighting that,” he said.

Lopez and co-founder Brenda Young, president of Marbay Group, want to change that by bringing together people who might not meet at individual industry meetings and allowing them to collaborate.

“It creates an environment that would take many months to create otherwise,” Young said.

It’s also an opportunity for innovators to meet early adapters and for entrepreneurs to find customers, Lopez said.

HealthCamp “connects the dots where they aren’t connected now,” said Pam Gaylor, an expected presenter and president of Caregivers Family Inc.

The newly formed St. Petersburg company is the sole distributor for MemoryMate, a Web-based software application that allows persons with memory impairments to communicate with family, friends and caregivers through a private network. MemoryMate is sold by subscription and can be accessed on a PC, tablet or smart phone.

Gaylor, a former IT executive with ValPak ValPak Latest from The Business Journals People on the move: July 23, 2010Direct-mail firms prepare to update mailing lists more frequentlyVal-Pak coupons find online home Follow this company , partnered with developer Ted Lindsay to take the product through beta testing. The commercial potential is “huge,” Gaylor said.

She’s also talking to officials in Florida’s community diversion program, a Medicaid waiver program that provides community-based services to people who would otherwise qualify for Medicaid nursing home placement. Diversion improves the quality of life for participants while saving the state money, Gaylor said. The program serves about 14,000 people, and getting just a part of that business would provide a funding boost for Caregivers.

Gaylor and Lindsay’s interest in MemoryMate developed from experience as caretakers for their mothers.

Ray Weadock’s enthusiasm for a cutting-edge device to detect heart disease grew out of his own health scare when he made a life-changing decision based on the result of a bad test. Facing heart surgery, he stepped down as chief executive officer of Persystent Technologies, only to find out later he was misdiagnosed.

Now, as general partner of LSW Partners, a management consulting firm in Tampa, Weadock is working to advance the multifunction cardiogram, a device that he said can diagnosis coronary artery disease in a 15-minute test in a primary care physician’s or cardiologist’s office with greater accuracy than a traditional EKG. He called it “the new wave of medicine.”

Manufactured by LSW client Premier Heart LLC in Port Washington, N.Y., use of the device qualifies for Medicare reimbursement in seven mid-Atlantic states. Weadock is working to get national Medicare coverage with private health insurers expected to follow suit.

The device would save millions of health care dollars, preventing unneeded hospitalizations and more invasive and costly tests, Weadock said.

Just as Weadock transitioned from the computer industry to medical technology, Anthony Sakovitchmade what seems like a big leap from Wall Street finance — serving as assistant complex manger for Morgan Stanley in west central Florida — to becoming chief executive of Aphex BioCleanse Systems Inc., a Port Richey firm that makes sanitizers for hospitals and other businesses. Sakovitch said he is at heart a research scientist who likes to challenge assumptions.

DermAphex, a hand sanitizer and Aphex’ flagship product, and other Aphex products have high concentrations of ions that attack microbes such as bacteria and viruses, a selling point for hospitals under pressure to cut infection rates. Aphex products are more environmentally friendly and less irritating to the skin than alcohol-based competitors, Sakovitch said.

The company doesn’t disclose revenue, but growth has prompted expansion. Occupying just half of its building upon opening June 30, 2010, it’s since added 5,000 square feet of warehouse space and as of July 1, added 6,000 square feet of office and training space for the sales force.

HealthCamp “is an opportunity to get in front of the people who need to use the product the most,” Sakovitch said.

He wants to learn from his potential customers. “Marketing is a two-way street. It’s not just us telling you what we have, but you telling us what you need.”

HEALTHCAMP FLORIDA Who: Leaders in health and health-related industries and organizations and others interested in the changing nature of health care What: An “unconference” — no set agenda but opportunities to talk about innovations transforming health care; a focus on technology, process and policy When: 9 a.m.- 5 p.m., Saturday, July 30 Where: Kforce, 1001 E. Palm Ave., Tampa 33605 Registration: $40 online at healthcampflorida.com or 8 to 9 a.m. onsite July 30