New hippomsg software designed to live "natively" on smartphones and tablets

The No. 1, free medical-texting solution is unveiling a faster platform that handles attachments during a launch party on June 19 near Fenway Park.

The new hippomsg software—designed to live "natively" on smartphones and tablets—enables medical professionals to work faster and smarter. By allowing providers to attach reports and images, hippomsg helps facilitate a more complete dialogue about a patient's case. More than 3,000 practices and thousands more medical professionals are relying on the secure, HIPAA-compliant application.

Frustrated by communication barriers in the medical community, the company's founders—Drs. Alex Grilli and Rahul Shah—designed hippomsg to give medical providers a universally available text-messaging platform that works on smartphones, tablets or desktop computers. In this unstable economic climate for medical practices, they built a solution that is, and always will be, free. The hippomsg community includes roughly 30 different types of medical professionals: EMTs, ER physicians, orthopedic surgeons and answering services, to name a few.

"We are building a community of professionals who know that patient care improves when medical professionals have efficient ways to communicate, using all the technology that is already in their pockets or on their desktops," said Shah, M.D., M.B.A., an otolaryngologist at Children's National Medical Center.

Grilli and Shah are alumni of Tufts' and Boston University's medical schools. Following their giveback ethos, they are hosting a launch party at Sweet Caroline's Restaurant and Bar to give the Boston medical community an evening to socialize and demo the new system.

"At hippomsg, we can't stop giving back to our colleagues," said Grilli, an otolaryngologist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. "Our app is free—and so are the food and drinks at our June 19 launch party. Join us—at the party or in the hippomsg community."