Tissue Analytics opened a sales-focused office in Kansas City

Along with moving to a new Inner Harbor office, wound-tracking startup Tissue Analytics expanded to another city to close out 2017.
The startup recently opened a new office in Kansas City as a result of ongoing work with health IT giant Cerner, said Tissue Analytics CEO Kevin Keenahan. It’s the first expansion outside of Baltimore for the three-year-old company.
Tissue Analytics is working with company through the Cerner Open Developer Experience (CODE) program, which allows startups to develop on top of the company’s technology. It has the potential to get the new technology being developed to more doctors. Tissue’s app, which Keenahan and cofounder Josh Budman created after completing Johns Hopkins’ CBID program, monitors wounds would effectively replace the ruler in many clinics.
Keenahan said it’s especially important to work with Cerner to help cut down on the time-consuming process of integrating with electronic medical records.
“We can scale through their network much faster than we would do it if we had to build custom integrations at every single hospital,” he said.
The company is part of similar programs with other healthcare tech giants such as Epic, Allscripts and Athenahealth.  Ultimately, the talent pool around Cerner in Kansas City proved attractive enough to open an office there, Keenahan said.
In fact, the first employee at the new office was VP of Sales Mark Becker, who used to run a sales team for Cerner. Sales will be the focus of the office. Keenahan said the company expects to have seven employees at the office within the first quarter of 2018.
Tissue joins Sickweather in the group of young Baltimore companies that started here and opened a new office in KC.

Meanwhile, the company’s tech operations will remain based in Baltimore. Keenahan said he expects about a dozen employees there after hiring early this year.
But before that, Keenahan is heading to pitch Sir Richard Branson. The startup is one of 10 semifinalists in the Extreme Tech Challenge, which was founded by the Virgin magnate. Keenahan will pitch at CES in Las Vegas on Jan. 11. From there, a group of three companies are chosen to pitch in the XTC finals at Branson’s own Necker Island.