This year, Boeing recognized 594 suppliers who achieved either a Gold or Silver level Boeing Performance Excellence Award. nLogic is one of only 153 suppliers to receive the Gold level of recognition.

nLogic provides services to The Boeing Company on the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), MDA Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIB, and U.S. Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Battle Command System (IBCS) programs. Core competencies include system engineering and integration, software development, modeling and simulation, test and evaluation, logistics, information technologies, and cyber security. nLogic was founded in July 2009 and has personnel located in Huntsville, AL; Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA; Fort Greely, AK; Colorado Springs, CO; and Arnold Air Force Base Tullahoma, TN.

nLogic generated 41 jobs from 2008 to 2011, placing it among the 10 private business job creators within the state of Alabama working in Government Services with annual sales between $5 and $10 million.

nLogic is an employee-owned, small business that provides products and services in the aerospace and defense sector. Core competencies include systems engineering and integration, software development, modeling and simulation, test and evaluation, logistics, information technologies, and cyber security. Current office locations include Huntsville, AL; Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA; Fort Greely, AK; Colorado Springs, CO; and Arnold Air Force Base, TN.

nLogic President and CEO Tim Thornton commented on the award: “nLogic is honored to receive this prestigious recognition and would to like thank Inc. Magazine and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This award would not be possible without the dedication of our employee owners and the loyalty of our customer base.”

Inc. is the only major business media brand aimed solely at CEOs of fast-growing private companies. The Hire Power Awards will appear in Inc.’s December/January issue, as well as the brand’s web site, www.inc.com.

“The top 100 companies on the list have created 73,032 American jobs in the three-year period from 2008 to 2011 – an amazing feat, given that much of that job growth came during the heart of the recession,” explains Inc. editor-in-chief Eric Schurenberg. “And it isn’t just the big guys that are adding jobs. Companies with less than $50 million in annual revenue make up nearly one-third of the Hire Power list.”

The inaugural Inc. Hire Power Awards are sponsored by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which is proud to recognize American companies that have greatly increased their workforces. Inc.’s Hire Power Awards celebrates private companies on the forefront of American job creation, giving these businesses the recognition they deserve.

The funding was led by Eastside Partners, joined by Hamilton Ventures and angel investors Paul Iaffaldano, Fred Goad and G.T. Laborde, most of whom are returning investors.

Atlanta-based BrightWhistle last summer raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Eastside Partners, Hamilton Ventures and several angel investors, the company said.

Company spokesman Robert Anderson said BrightWhistle serves between 15 and 20 major hospitals, including Duke University Hospital and Atlanta’s Piedmont Hospital.

Though the company has its own unique business model, BrightWhistle could be broadly described as a lead-generation company. Lead generation is a marketing term that refers to using various online platforms to stoke consumer interest in certain products or services.

While lead generation has grown steadily in tandem with the growth of the Internet–and is used in a variety of industries–BrightWhistle considers itself the first to bring a full suite of digital marketing techniques to the health-care industry, which has appreciably different rules and parameters than other industries.

The company is the first, for example, to integrate with Facebook and other digital campaigns that are compliant with HIPAA, or strict federal privacy guidelines that govern all health-care communications, Mr. Anderson said.

In addition to targeted ad campaigns delivered via Facebook , Google and other platforms, BrightWhistle offers directory management and feedback management, further mainstays of the lead-generation business, he said.

Directory management relates to curating a customer’s listing on review sites like Yelp, and feedback management has to do with managing various reviews of services by consumers.

Hospitals don’t use BrightWhistle to advertise their core business of healing the sick, but to promote special programs–for example, elective procedures like cosmetic surgery–and to engage patients who want a certain service, but haven’t yet put the wheels in motion, Mr. Anderson said. Additionally, the company aims to reach consumers who are researching various services and treatments, he said.

“It’s the true dawn of consumerism in health care,” he said.

The company has more in common with traditional lead-generation companies–for example, Yodle Inc.–than it does with other companies that handle marketing for the health-care industry, Mr. Anderson said, and considers Yodle and others to be competitors.

Adding to MEDSEEK’s enterprise-enabled online patient engagement solution platform, the BrightWhistle solutions capitalize on the prevalent use of the Web and social media by e-patients to help hospitals and health systems cost effectively acquire profitable patients. These solutions are particularly effective in influencing the 41 percent of consumers that consider information gathered via social media when choosing a specific hospital or physician.

“Just as other industries have taken advantage of the reality that social media has shifted so much of the power to define brand quality toward consumers, hospitals have an enormous opportunity to engage patients through the digital channel, drive positive reviews, acquire high quality patients In need of profitable procedures, and improve the overall patient experience,” said Greg Foster, CEO of BrightWhistle. “Moreover, by using the digital channel to acquire new patients, a hospital, by definition, increases the likelihood of directing that new patient to those online resources that contribute to Stage 2 Meaningful Use objectives.”

BrightWhistle solutions incorporate best practices in search engine marketing and social media to influence prospective patient behavior.  By encouraging patients to complete provider reviews before they leave the office and publishing those reviews instantly to search and social media destinations, providers can capitalize on the power of peer review in gaining prospective patients’ trust.  Hospitals and health systems that leverage the company’s social media campaign management service gain a powerful competitive advantage, as BrightWhistle occupies a unique position as the only HIPAA compliant Facebook Ads API partner.

“The MEDSEEK/BrightWhistle partnership is strategically important to both of us and the strengthening of our relationship is very exciting,” said Dale Edwards, SVP/GM of MEDSEEK’s predictive analytics division. “Significantly, MEDSEEK is now able to offer customers BrightWhistle’s search and social targeting solutions, which align well with MEDSEEK’s advanced analytics and predictive modeling solutions. The partnership allows us to offer healthcare organizations a greatly enhanced ability to reach, engage and activate patients, their friends and family online.”

“In my history as a technology entrepreneur, I have never seen a partnership progress as quickly as this one has,” said Foster.  “Even before the ink was dry on our agreement, we were actively engaging clients together and the backlog of activity is huge. Our strategic relationship with MEDSEEK will accelerate the growth of our business as hundreds of hospitals are exposed to our Social Patient Acquisition solution. The new group of clients we will engage alongside MEDSEEK will be taking advantage of the synergy of our combined offerings, a total solution set for patient acquisition, retention and engagement unmatched in the marketplace.”

With MEDSEEK putting two agreements in place already, hospitals and health systems are quickly realizing the potential for BrightWhistle’s provider review and social campaign management solutions and momentum is expected to build quickly. To learn how MEDSEEK and BrightWhistle can help your hospital to attract, convert and engage patients and drive revenues by building patient trust and loyalty, visit www.medseek.com or call 1.888.MEDSEEK.

About BrightWhistle
Established in 2010, BrightWhistle delivers a complete Social Patient Acquisition solution to hospitals, clinical networks and independent physician practices.  The Company’s proprietary solution applies advanced technology designed to enhance a provider’s online profile while targeting high value patients and procedures through search and social media.  The company also provides its platform to select marketing agencies with specialization in healthcare.  BrightWhistle is one of a small, select group of companies with official access to the Facebook Ads API and the only company in that group exclusively focused on providing solutions to healthcare providers.  The company was named one of the Top 10 Innovative Companies in Georgia for 2012 by the Technology Association of Georgia. BrightWhistle is based in Atlanta, Ga. and can be found at www.brightwhistle.com.

About MEDSEEK
Since 1996, MEDSEEK has focused exclusively on creating a 360-degree optimal eHealth experience for patients, clinicians and administrative staff by removing traditional integration and communication barriers, workflow roadblocks and redundant processes. Used by more than 1000 hospitals and health systems, MEDSEEK’s strategic patient engagement and management solution and predictive analytics technology enable hospitals to execute enterprise-wide objectives by improving quality of care, uncovering new sources of revenue, informing capital expenditure decisions and generating meaningful loyalty among physicians and patients with a low-risk, high-return investment that leverages existing IT investments and infrastructure. For more information, visit www.medseek.com or call 1.888.MEDSEEK.

nLogic’s customer base includes MDA, U.S. Army PEO Missiles & Space, U.S. Army AMRDEC, U.S. Army SMDC, U.S. Army AMC, USASAC, and USSOCOM. Core competencies include systems engineering, software development, modeling & simulation, test & evaluation, logistics, cyber security, and information technologies, nLogic has operating locations in Huntsville, Arnold Air Force Base, TN; Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA; Fort Greely, AK; and Colorado Springs, CO. The company has positioned itself to continue this growth into the foreign military sales and international direct commercial sales.

Employees have established nLogic nAbles, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to award a monetary grant to a worthy community cause. The most recent local nonprofit organization receiving support was Still Serving Veterans.
In 2011, nLogic received a Boeing Gold “Performance Excellence Award” and was nominated for the “Supplier of the Year” award. nLogic was recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the “Fastest Growing Companies” in the U.S. and was a finalist for the 2011 “Top Small Company Workplaces” award.