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A medical technology startup that has most of its employees in Charleston was acquired by a larger company in an agreement announced this week.
PokitDok, founded in 2011, employs 55 workers. According to Tuesday's announcement, Nashville's Change Healthcare will acquire "intellectual property and other key assets", including the workforce.
Ted Tanner, a Charleston native, is a co-founder of PokitDok with Lisa Maki, who left his position as CEO in 2017 and has entrusted the leadership to former insurance executive Joe Murad.
Maki, Murad, and the company were based in California, but most of the PokitDok employees worked from the Charleston office. The company has not responded to requests for comments.
The idea of the founders was to connect various systems across the healthcare industry – hospitals, pharmacies, medical offices – and streamline the flow of patient information between them.
This was a challenge due to the use of different recording systems. The problem has dragged the health industry for years, especially after President Barack Obama's package of economic stimulus has required all professionals to use electronic documents or pay a fine.
In the last two years, PokitDok has entered the blockchain world, calling its DokChain technology. Although blockchain is often associated with cryptocurrency, it has other applications. PokitDok proposes to exchange health information using blockchain, which is considered safe because no entity has control over it.
The technology company's argument depends on whether the healthcare system is wasteful and can make it more efficient using blockchain. Doing so, wrote the chief scientist of PokitDok, could save the industry potentially billions of dollars.
The new owner of the company is already using blockchain in management and compensation contracts and plans to incorporate the PokitDok technology. According to their information, Change Healthcare reaches 5,500 hospitals, 900,000 doctors and 33,000 pharmacies.
The company is owned by the majority of the McKesson healthcare giant, which sells pharmaceuticals, wholesale products and technology services.
"This acquisition is about practical innovation to create a more connected, transparent and efficient healthcare system in which patients monitor their information," said Kris Joshi, manager of Change Healthcare.
Join Mary Katherine Wildeman at 843-937-5594. Follow her on Twitter @mkwildeman.
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