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Health & Fitness

aText Leverage the Untapped Potential of Texting and Makes it Smarter, Customizable and Adaptive

FROM LIBERIA TO BAYSIDE, TEXTING TRANSFORMED

Bayside’s well-respected after-hours urgent care practice, PM Pediatrics, will soon find communications between their multiple offices in NY and NJ aided by an idea born in Africa.  In 2008, I travelled with my partner Michael Kheyfets to Liberia to meet with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. We’d been invited there on a goodwill mission to explore ways in which our well-established educational software company, Aztec Software, could assist with Liberia’s education reforms.  

What we soon realized is that the lack of infrastructure and a centralized power grid would be a huge impediment to delivering computer-based instruction to a large group of people.  At the same time, it was clear that the one technology that was ubiquitous in the country – and, indeed, in large parts of the world - was basic mobile phones.  We then realized that the solution was obvious - the most efficient method of reaching groups of people and disseminating and collecting information in real time would be through text messaging.  But how to innovate a layer of intelligence over text messaging to make it smarter, customizable and adaptive?   Faced with that challenge, Michael and I responded by creating aText Incorporated.

aText begins with the premise that in texting there is untapped potential that has never been fully exploited.  aText is designed to intuit users’ needs and act automatically on their behalf. The aText proprietary technology can be configured to deliver information to millions of people, micro target a population through intelligent and adaptive surveying, or auto-initiate alerts and notifications.

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The value of aText was underscored during the days immediately following Hurricane Sandy.  With power outages everywhere and many forms of communications rendered useless, text messaging became not only the preferred option but often the only option. We offered the aText technology free to municipalities, companies and other organizations so that they’d be able to stay in constant touch, share critical information and connect in real time. 

 

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As entrepreneurs, we recognize that sometimes innovation is more powerful and can have a greater impact than invention.  We are not creating a new communications technology.  We are simply leveraging one that is proven, ubiquitous and efficient and exploiting its potential in a way that is much more sophisticated and has many more applications.

aText is also a great solution for the communication requirements of the healthcare industry. We are now providing a private, SMS based network to PM Pediatrics, an award-winning provider of after-hours pediatric urgent care in New York and New Jersey, with a popular location in Bayside, Queens at the Bay Terrace Shopping Center. The aText system we are creating for PM Pediatrics will enable the medical directors and administrative staff at its multiple practices to coordinate communications and collaborate more efficiently.

According to Dr. Michael Bachman, Regional Medical Director of PM Pediatrics, for the New Jersey region, “In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, PM Pediatrics has realized the importance of instant communications between clinical staff and corporate leadership.  aText is meeting this need by creating an infrastructure that will enable immediate and essential communications between all PM Pediatrics locations.”

By Jonathan Blitt, CEO of aText

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