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July 23, 2015 | Tom Ballard

VortexT® addresses information overload for healthcare professionals

GIGTANK Demo Day(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of three articles spotlighting start-ups participating in this year’s “GIGTANK” accelerator that will be showcased at “Demo Day” on July 28. Each has a tie in one way or another to Knoxville as well as Chattanooga.)

By Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer, Pershing Yoakley & Associates, P.C.

Is there anyone who does not feel like he or she has to deal on a daily basis with information overload? I suspect the answer from any reader of teknovation.biz is a resounding “that is so true.”

Well, just imagine the challenge this reality presents to healthcare professionals, the very individuals in whom you trust your life. Helping doctors, nurses and even inquiring patients address this challenge is the premise behind VortexT®, a product from one of the start-ups in this year’s “GIGTANK.”

Global Security Information Analysts, LLC (GSIA) is an Oak Ridge-based company that developed the VortexT® app. Its Chief Executive Officer is Barry Goss, a long-time Oak Ridge entrepreneur and Founder of Pro2Serve, and the company’s Chief Technology Officer is Tom Potok, a well-known data science researcher and holder of 10 issued patents.

“We have validated our hypotheses that healthcare professionals are in data overload today,” Jason Goss, Senior Project Manager, told us during a recent visit to CO.LAB where the “GIGTANK” is located. In fact, the tagline for the app reads as follows: “The information overload solution for healthcare professionals.”

As Jason Goss explained, VortexT® delivers daily updates of relevant and valuable information gathered from sources around the globe that is tailored to the individual user’s personal areas of interest.

To do so, VortexT® scans medical research findings, articles, conference proceedings, grants, editorial opinions and other sources for information based on the profile each subscriber creates. The results are delivered daily in iOS and Android versions.

Among the features that VortexT® provides are the ability to bookmark findings to read or reference at a later date, build a personal favorites library of articles for convenient retrieval, and even a capability to earn and track continuing medical education credit.

VortexT® is one of two Knoxville area start-ups that are in this year’s “GIGTANK” cohort. The other is Evolvr, which is also participating at the same time in the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center’s “MediaWorks” accelerator.

“I’m impressed with the willingness of people in Chattanooga to help us in any way they can,” Jason Goss said. “I’ve never experienced anything like this. The interchange with other companies has been valuable.”

Luke Bechtel, a Software Engineer with VortexT®, echoed those feelings about Chattanooga.

“It has sharpened my skills to be around such highly motivated people,” he said, adding that he is now well-ingrained into Chattanooga’s software development community.


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