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s e r v i n g m i d va l l e y & u p pe r l ac k awa n n a va l l e y thevalleyadvantage.com | january 6, 2017
Baton twirlers from the area performed in New Orleans. |Page 4
High schoolers visited retired veterans during the holidays. |Page 6
Local college musicians will perform at a statewide festival |Page 10
Making Surgery Safer Kidney transplant inspires young entrepreneur by Christopher Cornell ADVAntAGe eDitor
Aug. 6, 2013, was a big day for Peckville native Joshua Mecca. It was the day the pre-medical student was to have a kidney transplant. Being an inquisitive type, Mecca had
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researched every aspect of his upcoming procedure, looking at all the statistics that had been compiled by hospitals over the years. One statistic Mecca stumbled across was one nobody likes to think about: the number of times an item is inadvertently left behind in a patient’s body in the course of surgery. The statisitics Mecca found were that one in eight procedures has a counting discrepancy and 12.5 percent of operating room errors are due to counting inaccuracies. As a transplant candidate, this figure struck home with Mecca. These unfortunate gaffes can lead to serious consequences. As you can imagine, this worried him. How can modern medicine let this happen he asked himself for days after his successful transplant surgery. Mecca was determined to develop a solution to this problem. He reached out to his friend and Marywood classmate John Strauss, and the two set to work. Mecca said the division of labor between the two was “fairly equal throughout the process. I specifically took the lead on developing different algorithms and software programming, and John focused on collecting data, research studies and professional opinions to ensure the technology we were creating was in line with customer needs. Mecca is now president and founder of M&S Biotics and the creators of a computer solution that helps with counting of surgical objects and other jobs that can prevent surgical and post-surgical mishaps. In a nutshell, Mecca said, “We provide operating room analytics that allow for more efficient, effective and safer surgical
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procedures.” But in addition to making surgeries safer as they happen, the data that M&S Biotics can compile allows hospitals to optimize all aspects of surgical procedures. Now his solution is getting noticed by potential investors. Mecca, a 2014 Peckville native Joshua Mecca turned a surgical experience into graduate of the a potentially life-saving invention. master’s program in biotechnology at TMCx is a four-month program that Marywood University, comprises workshops, structured curricuwas recently selected to pitch his company lum, advisement, and guidance, which leads at 2016’s HealthTech Venture Network to “Demo Day,” an exclusive presentation to Conference (HTVNC), which was held in hundreds of investors, corporate partners, Boston. hospital stakeholders, media and other At the competition (think, a high-tech guests. Mecca begins his time there next “Shark Tank,”) the would-be entrepreneurs month. get about five minutes to pitch their comMecca grew up in Peckville (Valley View pany and go-to-market strategy. They did, and M&S Botics won this year’s class of 2009) and said he “received nothing prize of $25,000 and earned one of only 15 but encouragement from members of the spots in the Texas Medical Center’s accelera- community, past teachers, employers and coaches from start to finish.” tor program, TMCx. And maybe, one day, an up-and-coming “Realizing a student from M.I.T won med student from the Mid-Valley, facing the competition last year really set the an upcoming surgery, will look up records bar high,” he said. “When we won, I was compiled by M&S Biotics that helped make shocked. I couldn’t have been more happy and proud. Let’s state the obvious: a Mary- his or her surgery safer. wood University grad going up against some of the most prestigious institutions in the world and coming out on top, pretty incredible achievement.”