Each year, millions of students across the country head to college for the first time. They load their cars with clothes, books and everything else a college student might need. What they do not realize is they might be carrying a disease with them as well, which is why universities require students to provide proof of immunizations.
It can be a nightmare for those who work at a school’s medical center, sifting through thousands of records. Records get lost in the mail or lost in a stack of papers. The margin for error is wide. However, University of Alabama alumni started a new company that could revolutionize the immunization verification process for colleges across the country.
Med+Pass is a health care technology startup that uses cloud technology to track incoming college students’ immunization records.
Med+Pass traces its roots back to the University, from which all its founders graduated. Hallet Ogburn, CEO, Jim Wills, president and CFO: and Kevin Bond, advisor, launched the company in 2014. They credit the former Director of the UA Student Health Center John Maxwell with the original idea.
“We’re not only just giving the technology to the college; we are providing our expertise along with that to help the students get through the process,” Hallett Ogburn said.
Recently, the company added Lonnie Strickland, a professor of strategic management at the University, to the board of directors. Strickland teaches the GBA 490 course at the University.
“It starts off slow, and you have to get one school that is willing to take the risk, which happened to be Auburn,” Strickland said. “And then it is the old snowball thing. Schools are very risk averse, but if you found out there are five of the finest schools in America doing this, hell, that is all you need to know.”
Med+Pass’s first customer was Auburn University. John Adams, who works at the Auburn University Medical Center, uses the service and thinks it is amazing.
“It is a lot more dynamic process instead of going to the doctor, getting a copy of the report, sticking it in the mail and crossing your fingers that it gets there,” Adams said. “I can get my folks to concentrate more on customer service and patient care rather than data entry and having to process paperwork.”
Med+Pass operates out of Nashville and services several schools in Alabama. It recently expanded to the University of Cincinnati and the University of Washington. Ultimately, the goal is to expand nationwide.
“[Immunization verification] is a problem across the country,” Ogburn said. “We have demoed with schools from Hawaii, South Florida, up to New York. You name it, everywhere in the country they have a problem with immunization verification.”
According to a press release from Med+Pass, the company credits a lot of its success to the MIS Program at the University, which helped develop and test new features for their software.
“I think it is kind of genius,” said Adam Williams, a senior MIS student who interned with Med+Pass and helped develop their IOS and Android mobile applications. “Speaking as this generation, we have steered away from paper forms. Giving somebody the ability to go to a website and upload it instead of delivering it to an office is something everybody would want.”
