With the Carnegie Library auditorium packed to the roof with startups, familiar faces in D.C. Tech shaking hands with some new faces from out of town, and with an all around palpable buzz in the air as entrepreneurs chit chat about the latest disruptive concept, the stage was set for Fortify.vc’s second installment of Distilled Intelligence (2.0).

I’m roughly on my third cup of coffee and have only just started covering all of the events for today, so please excuse both my brevity and my utter excitement as I continue to spew my geek enthusiasm all over the next few articles.

DI 2.0 started with an early-morning-lightning-fast networking round as founders, investors, and excited presenters pounded as many sugary pastries and caffeine as possible to get psyched about pitching an auditorium full of people and a panel of intimidating judges. All of the companies in attendance today are part of the “Day 1″ category of startups, meaning they are shooting for a Series A round of funding and already have capital invested in them or currently have revenue coming in. The format of the day’s ‘pitch sessions’ started off with a round of one-minute-pitches in which each company had to give a rather brief run-down of their company, their concept, their market, and why their particular solution is better than anybody else’s. Trust me: packing all of that into 60 seconds is more than tough, especially when you’re doing it under the scrutiny of a crowded room of highly-seasoned entrepreneurs.

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This week, MedClimate was accepted to pitch at the annual AARP conference for the Innovation@50+ summit. MedClimate will pitch innovators, industry professionals and consumers on the benefits of MedClimate’s CareConnect technology in the aging population – specifically for those loved ones in home- or nursing-health care facilities.

So what does the aging population look like?

The “50 and over” market is the largest and fastest-growing consumer market in the United States. Just how big is the “50 and over” market in the U.S.? Here are some answers:

• 100 million people are 50 and over and that number is growing.
• 10,000 turning 50 every day for the next 3 years.
• 10,000 turning 65 every day for the next 18 years.
• $3 trillion (yes trillion) in annual consumer spending
• 30% of the population, but over 50% of consumer spending in every vertical – especially health care

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Next week, Cocktails That Care, a New York-based charity, will be hosting their 3rd-annual evening event benefitting St. Baldrick’s Foundation to help kids with cancer cope with their condition and to help find a cure for children’s cancer. The event, themed “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” will take place on Thursday August 23 at Stitch NYC and will feature New York City’s finest. With celebrities on the red carpet, vendor tables and silent auction, the evening is promised to bring a host of excitement for all of those in attendance.

For more information about the event, or to book your tickets to join us in contributing to this worth cause, please visit Cocktails that Care or go to the invitation directly.

ABOUT ST BALDRICKS:
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives.

ABOUT COCKTAILS THAT CARE:
After attending countless social functions over the years on the NYC social scene, it dawned on Bridget that so many people would benefit if guests could raise money for a cause while enjoying the company of others. She shared her ideas with her good friend Tiffany and soon ‘Cocktails That Care’ was born. Over the years Bridget and Tiffany’s tireless charity work has benefited many people in need. The two women and their board of directors have collaborated their talents to bring to you a charity that is unique in its own right. Cocktails That Care raises money for a chosen beneficiary during a hosted cocktail party that gathers an array of talents, professions, and backgrounds. Bridget and Tiffany have leveraged one another’s skill set to bring in the best in entertainment, true advocates of the cause, and well rounded guests to create an exciting evening at an exquisite venue!

UPDATE
Congratulations to the Cocktails that Care team for putting together a fantastic, star-studded event in New York City this week. The event was a huge success for a worthy cause. The St. Baldrick’s Foundation will be benefitting greatly from the generous donations from all of the attendees. Make sure to join the next event and stay up-to-date at Cocktails that Care.

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If you’re not in London to celebrate the Olympics, perhaps the next best place to be is the British Embassy in Washington, DC. Here, MedClimate was invited to share our story with diplomats, investors and entrepreneurs from around the world in celebration of the Olympic spirit. The party, hosted by British Ambassador, Peter Westmacott, hosted a number of DC’s finest and a host of global innovators. The idea? Let’s keep in the theme of the Olympics by showcasing DC-based startups that are innovating industries in the US, but also around the world. With MedClimate CareConnect™, we demonstrated how we can change the way doctors and patients communicate both at home and around the world. Imagine remote communities in developing countries having the opportunity to connect with top doctors through telemedicine. We can make that a reality.

As mentioned in our previous post, our new app will hit the market in the next month or so – so keep an eye out. Also, please remember to register with us and we’ll keep you up-to-date on our development.

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MedClimate is getting to roll out our best product yet: MedClimate CareConnect™. This unique mobile and tablet application is completely native to your iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod). Imagine having your doctor in the palm of your hand wherever you go. That’s what we’re giving to you. Now, you’ll be able to connect with your doctor where it’s convenient. Need a prescription refill? Referral to a specialist? Checking-up on lab results? Have your questions answered for you conveniently.

If you’re an Apple fan, you’ll be impressed with how quickly you can find the care that you need and get back to your life. Look for the app’s release in the next month. Make sure to register with us to keep updated on our release.

Here’s to your health!

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We often hear about HIV rates effecting populations from around the world, but sometimes we’re unaware just how close to home this disease effects us. MedClimate is based in Washington, DC, where rates of HIV-infected people are staggering. Recent studies show that almost 3% of DC residents suffer from HIV. Perhaps the most disturbing is that this rate increases to almost 13% among poor African-American women. This health disparity is worsened by the inability for this women to afford treatment- leaving them helpless against the disease. New HIV treatment can prolong life for patients and prevent further T-Cell loss.

With such a racial and gender disparity- it’s time that we look towards culture-based educational programs and preventative treatment mechanisms and not stick to the book.

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We added a new feature to the MedClimate website this week – news. Instead of reading through multiple email blasts and scouring websites for interesting health news – come to one place where we aggregate it all for you. Have a tip – tell us about it and we’ll add new sites to our list of content sponsors.

We want to make your life easier while providing a great experience. By aggregating these news areas, we can ensure that providers are receiving the professional development that they need and that patients are receiving quality educational materials around healthcare learning. Enjoy the news and sign up for our email blasts to have them delivered to your doorstep daily.

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Well folks, it’s official that the Affordable Care Act (ACA (or Obamacare)) has been accepted and upheld by the Supreme Court. What does this really mean for us as patients, as providers and as innovators in health IT? For patients, it can very well mean longer waits at the doctor’s office and more delays in attempting to get an appointment. For providers, it can mean more headaches for less reimbursement. For healthcare innovators, it means opportunity.

MedClimate prides itself on creating products that deliver benefits to the healthcare ecosystem (patients, providers, payors) in order to promote better healthcare delivery that is more efficient and costs less. With the acceptance of the ACA, we want to promote our MedClimate CareConnect product that offers patients an ability to reach their providers more easily through video conferencing technology. Providers benefit by streamlining their practice and seeing more patients – increasing reimbursement rates.

As it is, the US is expected to fall short by 100-150K physicians by 2020. The ACA compounds this issue by creating a new rush for services, inundating physicians and other providers. Healthcare systems need to learn how to better utilize their staff while still providing quality healthcare delivery.

There are several types of technical innovations that will help our fragile healthcare system deliver care to over 300 million patients. Innovations in mHealth, data informatics, telemedicine, patient social networking and remote monitoring will all be necessary to improve health outcomes. MedClimate helps to innovate 3 out of 5 these.

We are all healthcare consumers. MedClimate is not only innovating for our country, but we’re innovating for our families.

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Bootstrapping a company is never an easy thing to do. Building a team, a product, a customer base and staying sane isn’t easy when you’re forced to do it by yourself – or with a small team. When it’s time to raise capital, companies that have been driving forward for months on little sleep and with few breaks are asked to explain every aspect of the company to the VC, Angel or PE firm that they meet with. Of course, companies make mistakes from time-to-time – we all do. What separates great companies from the rest is when the team can hold their own and not compromise their vision or mission while continuing to be successful. That’s what our team has done.

For the past year, the MedClimate team has worked diligently to bring great products to our customers and our users through hard work and unquestionable passion. Through product development and fulfillment, we are there for our users and our customers when they need us the most. Please know that as our company grows, we will continue our tradition of great service and quality delivery. As always, you can contact us with any feedback that you have.

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MedClimate was recently invited to speak at the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association Capital Connect TechBUZZ Conference in DC. We were among 25 other presenters who demonstrated innovations in a variety of technology fields. Through this experience, we received feedback from a number of eager technology experts that gave us really important feedback about our product and how we might improve our product for our patients and our providers.

This got us to thinking. How can we improve our product more? How can we engage our customers and users to deliver the greatest possible product – the one that you helped us build? We are in the process of launching a new corporate site which will allow us to receive feedback from our audiences on product improvements and we hope that you will take the opportunity to share your thoughts with us. In the meantime, you can always contact us with any feedback you have.

We thank you for your continued support and we promise to keep delivering quality products.

~The MedClimate Team

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