Overland Park’s ABPathfinder is setting off on a three-year journey in a national startup healthcare program.

Earlier this month, the startup was accepted into the Startup Health Academy, a three-year nationally-recognized program focused on companies in the healthcare space. Based out of New York, the Startup Health Academy combines entrepreneurial coaching with support from the healthcare community to scale companies like ABPathfinder.

Currently the program includes 71 companies from seven countries. Companies don’t have to relocate to New York, but do attend quarterly summits there. Additionally the Academy hosts forums with industry experts, weekly office hours via video chat, and connections to industry investors and executives, to name a few.

“This was just the right fit for us,” ABPathfinder president and CEO Jeff Blackwood told SPN. “It’s not an accelerator like Sprint’s (mobile health accelerator) where you go for 90 days and then move on. This is a three-year-long program where the main goals are to help grow your business and help you get connected to the right organizations, healthcare companies and government officials that can really make a difference in where business is going.”

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ABPathfinder helps provide autism therapy management solutions to helps educators and therapists create lesson plans and collect, chart and analyze data while reducing paperwork and extra tasks—putting more time into the children they’re helping.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” Blackwood said. “From the perspective of innovation in autism, this could make a huge difference for them, especially in terms of treating autism as a medical condition that technology can make a difference in.”

ABPathfinder is now beyond the first rollout of its services, with 31 customers across the U.S. including therapy centers and school districts. Blackwood says that the company has received reports that children with autism whose therapy teams are using software are, in some cases, gaining skills 20 percent faster than before. In terms of early intervention—the time between ages two and eight when a child’s brain is most receptive—the increase in learning is crucial, Blackwood said. 

“If you can help them learn more successfully so they can go to school or go to Cub Scouts, the better off they’re going to be, and to an extent we’ve accomplished that,” he said.

Currently there’s data for about 2,000 children in ABPathfinder’s system, but by next year Blackwood says the company projects to have data for 10,000. 

One of the Sprint Accelerator’s recent graduates, Medicast, also is a member of the Startup Health Academy. Medicast, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., offers doctors on demand, delivering certified physicians to homes, offices and hotels within two hours. 

Read more about what ABPathfinder is working on through our previous coverage: “Stackify helps neighbor ABPathfinder monitor, troubleshoot.”