History
Vecna was founded by MIT alumni Deborah Theobald and Daniel Theobald, [1] to provide consulting and systems integration services to the United States Military Health System and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The founders derived the name 'Vecna' from the Czech word věčný, fem. Vecna Technologies was founded in 1998 and has offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Greenbelt, Maryland location closed in 2019.
In 2015, Vecna was awarded the Kinetic Process Innovation Award for providing patient self-service technology to Boulder Community Hospital. [2] In 2015, the Robotics Business Review named Vecna one of the top 50 robotics companies to watch. [3] In 2012 the company was awarded the Gold Massachusetts Economic Impact Award for Greater Boston by the Massachusetts Alliance for Economic Development. [4] [5] In 2012, 2014, and 2021, Vecna was named to the Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts by the Boston Business Journal. [6] [7] [8] In 2011, the Small Business Administration selected Vecna as one of 44 recipients of the Tibbetts Award for driving innovation and creating jobs. [9]
After a series of close partnerships, in 2015, Vecna bought telepresence robot manufacturer VGo Communications and moved employees from Nashua, New Hampshire to Vecna's Cambridge offices. [10] The company then split into Vecna Robotics (Cambridge MA), and Vecna Healthcare (Burlington MA) in 2019. [11]
Health informatics combines communications, information technology (IT), and health care to enhance patient care and is at the forefront of the medical technological revolution. It can be viewed as a branch of engineering and applied science.
GE HealthCare Technologies, Inc., organized in Delaware and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, focuses on health technology. The company operates 4 divisions: Medical imaging, which includes molecular imaging, computed tomography, magnetic resonance, women’s health screening and X-ray systems; Ultrasound; Patient Care Solutions, which is focused on remote patient monitoring, anesthesia and respiratory care, diagnostic cardiology, and infant care; and Pharmaceutical Diagnostics, which manufactures contrast agents and radiopharmaceuticals.
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the original and largest clinical education and research facility of Harvard Medical School/Harvard University, and houses the world's largest hospital-based research program with an annual research budget of more than $1.2 billion in 2021. It is the third-oldest general hospital in the United States with a patient capacity of 999 beds. Along with Brigham and Women's Hospital, Mass General is a founding member of Mass General Brigham, formerly known as Partners HealthCare, the largest healthcare provider in Massachusetts.
Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions. Telemedicine is sometimes used as a synonym, or is used in a more limited sense to describe remote clinical services, such as diagnosis and monitoring. When rural settings, lack of transport, a lack of mobility, conditions due to outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics, decreased funding, or a lack of staff restrict access to care, telehealth may bridge the gap as well as provide distance-learning; meetings, supervision, and presentations between practitioners; online information and health data management and healthcare system integration. Telehealth could include two clinicians discussing a case over video conference; a robotic surgery occurring through remote access; physical therapy done via digital monitoring instruments, live feed and application combinations; tests being forwarded between facilities for interpretation by a higher specialist; home monitoring through continuous sending of patient health data; client to practitioner online conference; or even videophone interpretation during a consult.
A medical robot is a robot used in the medical sciences. They include surgical robots. These are in most telemanipulators, which use the surgeon's activators on one side to control the "effector" on the other side.
Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of lives". This includes pharmaceuticals, devices, procedures, and organizational systems used in the healthcare industry, as well as computer-supported information systems. In the United States, these technologies involve standardized physical objects, as well as traditional and designed social means and methods to treat or care for patients.
Health information exchange (HIE) is the mobilization of health care information electronically across organizations within a region, community or hospital system. Participants in data exchange are called in the aggregate Health Information Networks (HIN). In practice, the term HIE may also refer to the health information organization (HIO) that facilitates the exchange. The goal of HIE is to facilitate access to and retrieval of clinical data to provide to public health authorities in analyses of the health of the population.
A personal robot is one whose human interface and design make it useful for individuals. This is by contrast to industrial robots which are generally configured and operated by robotics specialists. A personal robot is one that enables an individual to automate the repetitive or menial part of home or work life making them more productive.
Donald M. Berwick is a former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Prior to his work in the administration, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement a not-for-profit organization.
Athenahealth, Inc. is a privately held American company that provides network-enabled services for healthcare and point-of-care mobile apps in the United States.
InterSystems Corporation is a privately held vendor of software systems and technology for high-performance database management, rapid application development, integration, and healthcare information systems. The vendor's products include InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, Caché Database Management System, the InterSystems Ensemble integration platform, the HealthShare healthcare informatics platform and TrakCare healthcare information system, which is sold outside the United States.
Dan Riskin is an American entrepreneur and surgeon. As an expert in healthcare artificial intelligence, Riskin has promoted healthcare quality improvement and helped shape policy in the US and globally. Riskin's companies, featured in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, have influenced the care of millions of patients. He continues to practice, teach, and perform research as Clinical Professor of Surgery at Stanford University.
Atrius Health is a Massachusetts based healthcare organization with a system of connected care for adult and pediatric patients in eastern and central Massachusetts. Atrius Health's medical practices work together with the home health and hospice services of its VNA Care subsidiary and in collaboration with hospital partners, community specialists and skilled nursing facilities. Atrius was acquired by Optum on May 31, 2022, which caused it to lose its tax-exempt status, although its charitable assets were transferred to the Atrius Health Equity Foundation.
AMRI Hospitals is a for-profit private hospital chain which is headquartered in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. In September 2023, Manipal Hospitals acquired a majority stake (84%) in the company.
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System is a health care organization that provides care to Massachusetts’ Veterans. It is part of the VA New England Healthcare System, one of 21 Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) within the VA. The VA New England Healthcare System includes VA medical centers in Boston and all six New England states. The VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System includes a medical center in Northampton and community-based outpatient clinics (CBOCs) in Greenfield, Worcester, Pittsfield, Springfield and Fitchburg.
VGo Communications, Inc. was founded in 2007 by Grinnell More, Tim Root and Thomas Ryden. It is located in Nashua, NH. VGo Communications has developed the VGo Robotic Telpresence Device, which it began selling in 2010.
Cynthia Fisher is an American businesswoman, entrepreneur, and corporate board director. She was a pioneer in the stem cell industry, founding the cord blood stem cell banking company, ViaCord, Inc., in 1993. In 2000, she co-founded ViaCell, which went public in 2005 and was subsequently acquired by PerkinElmer for its ViaCord brand.
Ting Shih is the founder and CEO of ClickMedix, a company that connects healthcare professionals and patients in developing countries with specialist doctors around the world, in order to achieve better healthcare. She is a 2012 laureate of the Cartier Women's Initiative.
Vecna Robotics, Inc. is an American robotics and technology company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Incorporated in 2018 as a spin-off from Vecna Technologies, the company specializes in automated material handling, hybrid fulfillment and workflow optimization for industrial applications.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts was part of a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The first confirmed case was reported on February 1, 2020, and the number of cases began increasing rapidly on March 5. Governor Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency on March 10. By March 12, more than a hundred people had tested positive for the virus. Massachusetts experienced a first wave of COVID-19 that peaked in late April 2020, with almost 4,000 people hospitalized with the disease, and a rolling seven-day average of 2,300 new confirmed cases and 175 confirmed deaths a day. A second wave began in the autumn of the same year and peaked in January 2021, seeing higher daily case numbers but fewer deaths and hospitalizations than the first wave. There was a smaller third spike of increased cases and hospitalizations in March and April 2021, which resulted in significantly fewer deaths than the first two waves. A fourth wave began in July and August 2021. Another wave occurred in the winter of 2021 to 2022, coinciding with the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in the state, and exceeding the peak number of cases in any previous wave. As of January 13, 2022, Massachusetts was experiencing a rolling average of 13,314 new confirmed cases and 43 confirmed deaths per day.
