CareCloud, a web-based software and services company that modernizes the workflow in a medical practice to put physicians in touch with each other across multiple points of care through a cloud computing technology-based solution, was one of two companies to receive the “IBM SmartCamp Silicon Valley” award. Albert Santalo (EMBA ’97), who serves as the company’s chairman, president and CEO, accepted the award in Palo Alto, California in September 2010.
“We feel our solution helps revolutionize the way physicians collaborate and share critical healthcare information,” Santalo said. “As a Miami-based technology company to be recognized by IBM, right in the heart of Silicon Valley, and to receive all the insights of the brilliant people attending the announcement, made this an incredible event.”
CareCloud and co-winner Streetline competed with hundreds of start-up companies that are creating new technologies in critical areas such as healthcare, water management and food solutions. IBM SmartCamp, launched earlier this year, judges the best start-up company in different cities worldwide, rewarding the winners with mentoring, services, access to industry experts, and deeper partnership opportunities from IBM, venture capital firms and industry partners. CareCloud and Streetline also have been invited to the upcoming World Finals in Dublin in November 2010 to square off against other SmartCamp winners from around the globe to claim the title of “World’s Smartest Start-Up.”
In addition to the event’s top prize, CareCloud also competed for three prizes from IBM’s SmartCamp cosponsors, picking up two of them: the Ballou PR award, offered by international public relations firm Ballou, and the SDForum high technology award.
Santalo has strong ties to College of Business Administration.
Santalo is a member of the Dean’s Council in the College of Business Administration at Florida International University (FIU), the 2006 inductee in the college’s Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame as founder of Avisena, a graduate of the college’s first Executive MBA class and a speaker at events such as a “Distinguished CIO Lunch and Learn, titled “Health Care Information Systems: Challenges and Cures.”
“Pursuing Internet-based software and services as a means to fix the problems of U.S. healthcare is my life’s work,” he said. “I feel lucky to have the opportunity to be doing this with the exceptional individuals we have on our team at CareCloud. This is also a time in which an unprecedented level of attention is being paid to the matter of healthcare reform and technology’s role as an integral part of the solution.”
