DEFINITE READS

• Business: Traveling Man Hal Rosenbluth’s Next Act [Philadelphia magazine] — The travel agency millionaire embarks on the development of a Conshohocken-based company Take Care Health that installs clinics in Walgreens, which purchased the firm in 2007.
• ‘Philadelphia chromosome’ led to breakthrough in cancer treatment [Philadelphia Business Journal] — 50 years later, a celebration at Fox Chase Cancer Center in the Northeast.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• myYearbook on Silicon Alley Insider’s Digital 100 [Philly Tech News]

GIVE A GLANCE

• Local stocks soar [Philadelphia Business Journal] — Campbell Soup, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Tasty Baking and Comcast all saw spikes.
• USciences is a Proud Sponsor of Citywide Science Festival [University of Sciences]

• Best Read Story of the Week: 10 coolest (mostly interactive) online maps of Philadelphia

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

Current state technology investments are budgeted at an all-time high, due in part to federal economic stimulus dollars and an increased interest in government technology that promises reduced costs and improved services in Pennsylvania.

According to a report from market research and professional services firm pjmathison, which assists clients with procurement, grants and loans, state government technology-related spending is estimated to exceed $2.1 billion this year.

The firm’s founder, Paul J. Mathison, whose background has been in both technology and government relations, has led the preparation of the company’s state technology forecasts for 10 years.

Mathison says that as federal economic stimulus money is awarded and depleted, the state will face a technology shortfall in future fiscal years. “That money is going to be drying up after this year and beneficiaries and recipients of that federal stimulus money are going to be scratching their heads,” he said in an interview with Technically Philly on Tuesday.

But the firm predicts that the state will continue investing in technology as the economy turns around and as tax revenues readjust.

“Governments at all levels are figuring out that they can provide many government services faster, better and cheaper by deploying technology. It’s a trend whose tipping point has occurred over the past few years.”

Priorities of budget spending are in health information technology, energy technology and broadband investment, according to the report. Broadband has been of increasing interest in the region, state and nationally. The City of Philadelphia has chased federal broadband stimulus dollars for the past year and has refocused its energy on attracting Google to lay one-gigabit fiber here.

“There will be a couple hundred million dollars being spent on broadband over the next fiscal year, bringing broadband to rural areas and other underserved areas,” he says. Mathison says that some of those projects are already underway, like the state’s mapping of broadband capacity and capabilities across the state, as we’ve reported.

State spending means contract opportunities for businesses locally and throughout the state, which means job creation and retention, and which could directly benefit the region. With his company based Philadelphia, where he has long-championed technology businesses, Mathison says that local companies face tougher conditions for procuring government contracts.

“In Philadelphia, because we’re not as close to Harrisburg as those who are populated around the state capital, you just don’t hear about government contracting. But opportunities exist for local companies large and small to provide products and services to the state,” he says. Mathison says that there’s a lot of pressure for economic stimulus money to go to disadvantaged businesses, like minority- and women-owned operations.

And there’s plenty budgeted for job training and for business investment through initiatives like Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Keystone Innovation Zones. Though BFTP was threatened with deep cuts last July, Mathison says that its current year budget reductions were “consistent with what other parts of state government are being subjected.”

DEFINITE READS

• Philadelphia Business Journal’s Peter Key shares two interviews and their comparisons between the technology startup communities of Philadelphia and the 67th ward.
• The Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong reports on a rash of more ugly numbers related to employment and Philadelphia’s business tax burden.
• Inquirer City Hall reporter Marcia Gelbart reports on a fairly startling amount of “confusion and disarray” by the city government and its management and pursuit of federal stimulus dollars.

After the jump, more World Series economic impact math, you’re going to be hired in health care and ten more stories to chew on, including our best read piece of the week and a video pick me up.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

• Bloomberg does the numbers on the economic impact of the World Series, including perspective from Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser. The Inquirer reports that GPTMC is using the World Series as a marketing platform, and the Business Journal reports that GPTMC is working with New York City’s tourism agency.
• The Business Journal’s Athena Merritt reports on the details of PECO’s $200 million cash grab in federal stimulus grants.
• The Business Journal’s John George reports that Temple University has unveiled a new $3 million biotechnology research center.
• Information Week on why your next IT job will be in health care.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The Inquirer reports that its sister company Philly.com has promoted a 32-year-old former newspaper reporter to president.
• The Business Journal’s Peter Key goes deeper into Deloitte’s 2009 Greater Philadelphia Fast 50, which we told you about last week.
• The Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong reports that a Dallas-based company will absorb assets of the Philadelphia Fund, which is itself currently owned by a Florida company.
• Keystone Edge sister site Pop City Media reports that Pittsburgh companies raised $78 million in venture funds this quarter, showing a strength against national trends.

One final thought: We avoided this last week because it’s a tad out of our coverage, but it’s too good to ignore and picking up 190k views on YouTube in a week ain’t too bad.

In the spirit of needing a Phillies pick-me-up after last night’s tough World Series loss, we bring you “Ill State of Mind,” the really great Philly-centric remake of the noted Jay-Z song “Empire State of Mind” by previously unknown NeeKo that has made its way across the blogosphere. Want a tech angle? Let’s say it’s about how much his snap-quick growth in regional popularity is tied to social media like another young emcee from the region.

• Our Most Trafficked Story of the Week: Shop Talk: Viddler takes care of business

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn�t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

DEFINITE READS

• Innovation Philadelphia reports that our fair city was ranked the fourth most innovative U.S. city in a recent large survey by 2think2know. Philly lagged behind Boston, which was ranked No. 1 globally, San Francisco, New York and Washington D.C. We were 32nd globally.
• Good magazine hits Center City to talk the innovation surrounding the recently installed BigBelly trash cans that are showing up on our busy city streets. There’s a hotly edited video that includes Oscar the Grouch.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

• TechCrunch just seems dumbfounded by the profitability of the little social network that could, myYearbook based in New Hope, Pa., co-founded by Catherine Cook, whom we spoke to earlier this year.
• The Inquirer reports that the next big innovation in rural health care may come from two small towns 150 miles northwest Philadelphia.

GIVE A GLANCE

• As part of a big green business package in its Sunday edition, the Inquirer reports on a Warminster firm that is betting its future on the growth of LED light sales.
• Philly Tech News reports that two scientists from our region were named to the MIT Technology Review’s TR35, representing the top innovators under 35 years of age.

Our Most Trafficked Story of the Week: Section 8 bash at Tattooed Mom on South Street: A Technically Philly and Geekadelphia co-sponsored event

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn’t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

A screenshot of DocAsap's homepage

Wharton student Puneet Maheshwari‘s child had an ear infection.

And, as any parent can tell you, hell hath no fury like a child sick. After combing through the Yellow Pages for the right doctor, Maheshwari was forced to go to the emergency room out of frustration and pay significantly more money than if he had found a specialist.

Like any good Wharton student, Maheshwari thought he could do better, and DocAsap was born.

The service, much like what OpenTable does for restaurants, searches for doctors based on criteria you define and allows you to schedule appointments with them. For example you could search for pediatricians that take Blue Cross in South Philly and DocAsap would give you all of the eligible candidates. Currently, the site only reviews Philadelphia-based dentists, however the site plans to expand to other markets and more types of physicians.

“We should have a really good coverage ratio in the Center City area soon,” said co-founder Vicente de Baca. After filling out the Center City area, DocAsap will then branch to the suburbs and, if everything goes according to plan, nationally. And unlike many Wharton grads, the duo plans to stick around for a while.

“We are very focused on building the Philadelphia market and plan on sticking around to see the development of the site,” he says.

The initial response from doctors has been positive, says de Baca, though DocAsap is taking its time rolling out the site. The company started as a service for patients, but it soon realized that there was a real demand on the physician side as well. Many doctors have problems with no-shows from people who schedule too far in advance or who just simply forget to call and cancel.

The company estimates that 30 percent of all appointments go unused. For a health care system that has seen costs rise sharply in recent years, increasing efficiency by 30 percent is an intriguing prospect. And, the Wharton name doesn’t hurt either.

“Doctors in the city are very welcoming to the homegrown business,” says de Baca.

BOOTSTRAPPED

Currently, all work is done in exchange for equity and the company has no outside funding. Though that isn’t something it has ruled out entirely. De Baca says that they would certainly seek angel investments before going to an institution.

The site makes money by charging doctors based on a variety of factors, including the type and size of practice. Free clinics and practices with patients that are mostly publicly insured are charged less than primarily privately insured practices.

Earlier this year, DocASAP attempted to make the bootstrapping easier on the wallet when it was a finalist in the Wharton Business Plan competition, though it failed to place.

“We heard there was some tension in the judging room about where we placed,” de Baca says. A first place finish would have netted the company $20,000.

He noted that they are pleased with the response since the site’s launch on July 2nd, and are simply focused on cornering the market in Philadelphia.

Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly’s tech scene, but aren’t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

If the guy who said “what gets measured gets managed” stepped foot into Albert Einstein Medical Center he would have been a happy man.

The Logan-based hospital has been using a Real-Time Location System (RTLS) that monitors and measures the location of doctors, medical devices and patients since last September, according to RIFD Journal, but the North Broad Street fixture has just released their first round of related metrics.

What Twitter is to your friends’ eating habits, the RTLS is to medicine.

Each patient who comes through the hospital is given one of the 350 special ID cards that gets synced with the patient’s medical file. The devices act as a GPS of sorts, relaying the location of the wearer to receivers throughout the hospital which transmit the data over a local area network to a computer running special software. Hospital employees can pull up the building’s floor plan and see in real-time where patients and co-workers are and how long they have been there.

Doctors no longer have to go searching for equipment (and each other), while the time patients spend waiting around to be treated is being cut down.

The tracking system is more than just a damn-cool way to make the medical center run more smoothly, it also helps the bottom line.

Medical personnel can not only track the location of a patient, they can also track how long that person has been in their current location, allowing all kinds of metrics in efficiency to be taken and analyzed. In less than nine months, Albert Einstein has seen a 24 percent increase in patients in the emergency department and a $4.5 million increase in revenue. The figure of patients who leave the ER prematurely and end up coming back for more treatment is down from five percent to between one and two.

Doctors also receive monthly reports that evaluate their performance on statistics such as patients treated, how often each patient was visited and time spent with each patient.

Soon, the hospital hopes to combine the tracking system with electronic medical records to make all of the hospital’s data available from a single source. Once that projects is finished, the system will be able to combine location data points with statistics typically found in a patient’s chart.

If all of that data in one place makes you skeptical, you have good reason. Earlier this month, a hacker broke into a� similar database in a Virginia medical center and demanded $10 million in ransom.

Researchers there have announced that they have validated a test capable of confirming the incurable, degenerative disease at its earliest stages, increasing the opportunity to find methods to slow or eventually stop the effects, according to a university press release.

The test measures cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of  amyloid beta42 peptide and tau protein, two of the disease’s trademarks.

“With this test, we can reliably detect and track the progression of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Leslie M. Shaw, who led the research. “Validated biomarker tests will improve the focus of Alzheimer’s clinical trials, enrolling patients at earlier stages of the disease to find treatments that can at least delay –and perhaps stop– neurodegeneration. In addition, prevention trials can test methods to delay or block mild cognitive impairment from converting to full-blown Alzheimer’s.”

The test can confirm whether a patient will suffer from the disease before dementia and most irreversible damage occurs. The researchers say the findings may help in the search of effective therapies capable of stopping the disease, which affects some four million Americans.

Further validation studies are underway at the Ivy League school in University City.

In related news yesterday, another Penn research team announced that they had identified a new protein important in the breast cancer gene’s role in DNA repair.

Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, The Philadelphia nonprofit healthcare system, is beginning to implement multiple healthcare information technology solutions from Kansas City, Miss.-based Cerner Corp.

Cerner is offering a unified electronic medical record for each of Einstein’s more than 550,000 annual patients at its hospitals and outpatient facilities throughout the region, according to a company press release.

The technology is meant to allow doctors and nurses to “electronically document care in the patient’s record, access research about medical best practices, automate hospital processes in multiple departments, and connect medical devices to the EMR.”

Or, you know, you could just scribble everything down.

Einstein has facilities in Olney, Belmont, Willowcrest, Elkins Park and elsewhere in the Northeast and northwest regions of the city.