As the coronavirus pandemic has swept the globe, many are turning toward what used to be seen as interesting innovations to every day life to tools that are now crucial in a work-from-home world.
We've got four local companies that have seen a viral increase in business and interest in their product, all with one common theme: digital resources.
They are all within the telehealth and edtech sectors, two industries that have been known to be bureaucratic and slow moving in the past, but may be awakened after being forced to completely or partially pivot to online resources.
DocClocker
DocClocker, a Tampa-based startup that created an app to communicate to patients the wait time to see a physician through a patient, has seen downloads triple since concerns began to rise about COVID-19. It was also one of our 20 startups to watch in 2020.
"Our product deals directly with physician offices and their waiting rooms," founder Eric Carter said. "Traditionally, the waiting room wasn’t as big of deal. But it's gotten a lot of people's attention: patients' and physicians' interest alike."
Like many startups and other services during this time, DocClocker is offering their app for free for six months to help as many people as possible as the pandemic continues.
"We're trying to make it completely free, because we think it's a great service," Carter said, adding they're working to make it free for testing centers as well. "From a business standpoint, we can make profits down the road, next year, but at this point in time it's to get physical engagement, patient engagement."
TAO Connect
The St. Petersburg-based startup TAO Connect provides an online suite of behavioral health tools, including some 400 videos and hundreds of interactive exercises powered by artificial intelligence.
In a time where all university classes are online, with counseling services for many of those same universities following suit, TAO Connect serves a crucial — and equally as important, a quick — need.
"One of the things that's always been true at universities is it's a very long process," Dr. Sherry Benton, founder and chief science officer at TAO Connect, said. "From the time we first talk to someone then get a check, it can be two years. But we had one (university), we talked to them on Friday and closed the deal (Tuesday). It's amazing how fast they can go when they feel it's an emergency. I would say universities have been given a week to come up with a plan to deliver services online."
While it is difficult to quantify the amount of increased use among universities, Benton said at one point the company received five calls from different universities within 15 minutes.
"That's a huge amount in a short amount of time," she said. "As soon as the first university in the country said, 'We’re going to stop having face-to-face instruction and go online,' it became clear others would follow. And it isn’t just the U.S., it's Canada too. We’re fielding call after call."
While universities have to contract with TAO Connct to receive the entire platform, it is offering additional components under the free model.
"In terms of the things we’re doing to make it easier to use, it's offering the video conferencing, even if they didn’t pay for it, other things," Benton said. "We're trying to do as much as we can, to be helpful, knowing universities are not just getting more money. This isn’t the moment to make more money. This is the time to be helpful as we can."
Cohesion Education
The startup was created by three former fourth grade teachers, who created a website compiling over 600 educational videos three years ago. He and his co-founders wanted videos “by teachers, for parents.”
But as schools began to close across the nation during the pandemic, co-founder Jim Szewc took to social media: commenting a link to access the resources for free until the end of the year within Facebook statuses and teacher groups.
“We wanted the parents to be more engaged in education,” he said. “That was before (coronavirus). Now, the need is desperation, because parents are being forced to teach their kids and they’re not prepared for what that involves. A home school parent is an unbelievable skill to have and parents aren’t used to it.”
He said the company saw a bigger spike in two days last week, as schools began to announce closures, than it did the first two months of this year.
“I was just trying to explain to my dad how the growth happened,” he said. “Everything has just been truly viral.”
Immertec
Immertec, the Tampa-based virtual reality company, has gotten attention from one of the biggest economic drivers in the region: the University of South Florida.
USF's Center For Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation recently signed a research agreement that would test the efficacy of its software and hardware. It will also be used to train medical students, who can use the technology to learn surgery remotely.
"Three years ago is when we really recognized the risk of infection was a serious thing," founder Erik Maltais said. "And being able to train remotely would be advantageous. We saw it as a super valuable proposition, it's what we would tell the surgeons, but now people recognize not just the risk of the surgeon, but there's so many others: the patient, scrub doctor ... why would you not do this? If you cold do it remotely, without risking infection, it's like, why would you do it any other way?"
He believes the coronavirus pandemic will lead to sweeping changes in the medicine and telehealth fields, in a way flying was never the same after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I don't think (the policies) will be the same ones next year, but they will come from COVID-19 and then they will make modified version in 2021," he said. "No one wants to be as unprepared as we are right now. I think it will change in a pretty significant way, the same as you saw with Zoom. It was nice, but people said, 'Let's meet in person,' and now it's seen a huge increase. And that's on the non-medical side; ours will be crucial."
