Polka is the first and only secure aggregation and collaboration service to help you manage your health, backed by our core patented Me Server™. We keep all of your important health information up-to-date and available anytime, anywhere --- whether it's for routine check-ups, daily prescription and supplement tracking, during the critical moments of emergencies, or seamlessly sharing information between your healthcare team where it’s needed most.
Today’s complex healthcare system grapples with outdated paper systems and unconnected, diverse IT systems, resulting in a lack of timely, accurate information and collaboration, as well as costly financial and treatment errors in patients’ healthcare.
Polka and Me Server empowers users to receive the best healthcare services possible, enabling portability while saving time. For the first time, users can simultaneously access their health information and communicate with their core team of family, friends, and health professionals via Polka’s website or mobile phone applications. Healthcare providers and businesses are now able to remove processing costs, save on integration costs, exceed federal mandates, and deliver even better service to patients through Polka.
About Me Server™ and Me Services™Me Server is a collection of software that provides the core functions to secure, filter, share, and synchronize your information in the way you choose. It can run on a machine, in a virtual machine, on mobile platforms, or on many other computing platforms. Its intention is to represent the “Me” within that particular context and provide tailored functionality to aggregate and control the exchange of “Me” information.
Working in tandem with the Me Server, Me Services are specific sections of “Me” exposed and communicated to the outside of the world by personal design – whether it’s interests, health information, logons, or other facts about me that you want to share safely and securely with your team. Me Services are exposed as an API, web service, file, XML, stream, email, or just about any protocol that exchanges information. The first generation Me Services are delivered as an API to communicate with XML using web services. Me Services enable network sharing of a secure, personalized set of services about “Me” and controllable by “Me.” It’s not just a computer, it’s a Me Server.
For example, our My Health Me Services running on the Me Server will include an emergency data file and personal health record files. Users can decide how much to share and which portions of their files they want to share with their core health team through Polka. They can also decide how and when it will be accessed by outside emergency personnel in case of an emergency.
Polka’s Free Emergency CardOur first product beta, the free Emergency Card, is available now. The Emergency Card is a printable, wallet-sized card with your vital information, including blood type, allergies to medications, and emergency contact information.
You can also choose to have Polka create and maintain a secure web page with more detailed health information and records for you and your emergency contacts to utilize. This can be accessed directly over the web or through mobile phones. We provide a special username and password on your Emergency Card for any doctor or hospital to access this information in case of emergency with secure parameters set and chosen by you.
Taking a few minutes now to build an Emergency Card for your wallet and on Polka will enable instantaneous sharing of key data in an emergency situation when time and accuracy matter most.
How We StartedPolka was formed as a corporation in 2006. While developing the infrastructure and framework for Polka, founder and CEO Mike Kirkwood realized the need for a sophisticated technology solution to manage our most precious possession – our health.
Polka’s foundation is built on an uncompromising standard for security as we provide products and services that meet and exceed our customers’ needs for managing their health.
Our ValuesPolka is committed to building life-transforming health management through dynamic information, communication, and economies. We focus on personal empowerment and community-driven architectures that respect the rights of all who join and each individual’s health as a whole person.
We exist to prove that your information belongs to you, and you alone should have the tools to control the quality of your health and the health of those you love.
It sometimes seems our health information is inaccessible, and this isn’t an acceptable solution for the growing population throughout our global community. Together we will move through today’s broken status quo and difficult access to healthcare records and management. We meet in the middle between you and your healthcare providers, creating a secure conduit to represent you easily in online transactions and requests for your health management.
We also believe that you deserve a better, more efficient way to communicate and collaborate with your important healthcare support team of family, friends, and health professionals. Polka delivers a definitive portal for you to share and update health information and more with these important contacts.
Our TechnologyPolka is based on a secure framework that has been designed as the first encompassing service for the individual, as a person, connecting to the network. Our Me Server was built using emerging technologies in an iterative style to give extreme results in publishing and sharing your information.
Security is the utmost priority, demonstrated by our patented secure protocols that focus on integrating you and your information across a host of systems both online and offline. Our patented Me Server technology acts as a designated agent for you, and it provides a repository, back-up, and integration of your key web and non-web health data.
Our technology advantage in healthcare is focusing the interface around you, across multiple touch points, to evaluate the best outcomes and connections to get the job done. You are the one most connected to your health and sharing it with your team. Polka’s Me Server changes the direction of the transaction, providing a trajectory to the future where we all have our records when needed and our profile always remains in our control.
In addition, we are introducing My Health -- a health portal that keeps up with you and your most critical contacts.
Who We AreAnca Mosoiu
Product Manager
Anca Mosoiu is the product manager for Polka, and is a multidisciplinary software product developer with twelve years of experience in the Internet and desktop software industry. A graduate of MIT, Anca began her career as a software engineer developing IT applications for large organizations. She has also worked as a user interface and 3D programmer, which led to her interest in web technologies and her role as a solutions architect at AvenueA/Razorfish and subsequent freelance career. Anca has worked with a diverse client base, including early-stage start-ups and multi-national corporations, including Shell, Visa, Cisco, Sun, Sony, and others.
Anca is a firm believer in the thoughtful application of technology solutions to solve human problems in a sustainable, socially responsible fashion.
Dave BeckerSoftware Architect
Dave Becker is a software architect with over a decade of experience developing enterprise-class web, mobile, voice, and client-server applications on the Microsoft platform. He is also a performing musician and cyclist. When not slinging code or spending time with his wife and two boys, he can be found pedaling down (or up) one of the many scenic roads around his hometown of Portland, Oregon, playing music in a dingy rock club, or tinkering with one of his vintage tube guitar amplifiers.
Doug PedleySoftware Engineer
Doug Pedley is a software engineer for Polka. He has been working for more than ten years as a programmer, system architect, and webmaster at companies such as Intel and Cisco Systems. When not at the keyboard, Doug is busy as a stay-at-home father. Doug, his wife Kim, and three-year-old Aidan live in Portland, Oregon.
Scott BensonDesigner
Scott Benson is the designer for Polka, and has a long history in industrial design, web design, and information graphics. He very much enjoys Photoshop, Flash, and user interface development. When Scott isn't pushing pixels or dinking with his computers, he enjoys the finer things in life, like eating, sleeping, and spending time with his wife and dog.
Michael HaydenApplication Designer
Michael Hayden is Polka’s application designer with a focus on real-world applications and balance of all things. He codes JavaScript like there’s no tomorrow.
Business teamMike Kirkwood
Founder and CEO
For more than a decade, Mike Kirkwood has held enterprise architect managment positions in the software and networking systems industry, including some of the largest technology infrastructures in the world such as Sony Electronics, Cisco Systems, and Intuit.
Mike has been a key contributor in enterprise-wide projects, including the $100 million release of Cisco.com in 2002, where his group won “John Chambers’ Most Visionary” and “IT Operational Excellence” awards. He was also the release manager for Intuit’s $80 million enterprise Oracle and Tibco release in 2004 and Sony Electronic’s $150 million SAP release in 2006 where he managed web hosting, identity systems, enterprise messaging, and EDI commerce for $12 billion in transactions. Through these experiences, Mike has gained a striking balance of architectural and operational excellence for consumer-facing companies and their applications.
Prior to those positions, Mike did emerging technology strategy and deployment consulting work for Microsoft, InterTrust, Lucent, HP, and Intel on his own and at two PR agencies, Waggener-Edstrom in Portland, Oregon and Alexander Communications in San Francisco.
In the early 1990s, he was the CEO of a small technology start-up that focused on web consulting, commerce, and community development. In 1994, they launched and managed the first comprehensive online city guide, which included software integration into classifieds, calendars, personals, and business listings. Mike managed the merger of this with the Excite Local service in 1996.
Mike graduated with a bachelor's of science in business in 1992 and an MBA from the Rady School of Management at UCSD in 2007.
He received five patents in large-scale systems for semantic web technologies while at Cisco, and has filed four subsequent patents, three of which while at Polka. He has been an architect leader and contributor of several B2B standards groups, including RosettaNet, ebXML, and UNSPSC, and recently has taken a global interest in DataPortability, HIPPA, and emergency preparedness.
Mike and his wife Megan and their two children live amongst the giants in Berkeley.