A Baltimore startup with a mobile application to keep tuberculosis patients on track with their medication regimen is expanding with new contracts in California and big ideas for how the technology can improve oversight of medications for other illnesses.
Emocha Mobile Health, founded in 2013 on technology licensed from the Johns Hopkins University, has recently landed contracts with Fresno, Merced and Contra Costa counties in California. Those communities have some of the country’s highest concentrations of latent tuberculosis, a form of the lung bacteria that does not have symptoms and puts patients with weakened immune systems at greater risk for developing the potentially deadly disease.
The new contracts represent a vote of confidence for emocha’s mobile app as a tool to both improve medication adherence among patients and efficiency within the public health departments responsible for overseeing their care. The app is already in use in Baltimore and several other counties in Maryland, as well as in Texas and Australia.
“Maryland, Texas and California have strong advocates who are customers, and they’re the type of customers who are going to improve the product,” said Sebastian Seiguer, emocha’s co-founder and CEO.
HENRY KOTULA 