PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pip Care, a new company that helps patients prepare for and recover from surgery through a consumer-facing app, today announced a pilot program at three UPMC hospitals. This is the first company to be created out of the recently announced partnership between UPMC Enterprises and Redesign Health to build, launch and fund innovative health care companies.
UPMC has three Centers for Perioperative Care (CPCs) at UPMC Shadyside, UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Horizon, where multidisciplinary teams help high-risk patients manage chronic conditions and make healthy lifestyle changes before surgery to improve outcomes. The three CPCs combined see approximately 10% of all surgical patients with inpatient stays at UPMC. While bringing these services to more patients would be ideal, challenges like space, staffing and accessibility for patients make opening more CPCs difficult.
“Surgery can be incredibly difficult on a patient’s body. In some cases, it can have the same toll as running a marathon,” said Aman Mahajan, M.D., chair of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and executive director of UPMC Perioperative Services. “If we can help patients make healthier decisions – like losing weight or quitting smoking — before they have their procedure, then we can lessen their time in the hospital and speed up their recovery. It is a service that all patients could benefit from, not just those who are at a higher risk for complications. We want to bring the CPC services to more patients while still creating an excellent experience, and Pip Care will help us reach this goal.”
Beginning later this fall, Pip Care will be piloted at all three CPC locations at UPMC. Patients will be able to use the full suite of Pip Care services, including appointment reminders, goal trackers and access to personal, certified health coaches to guide them on their journey.
“The human interaction is what makes Pip Care special,” said Kathy Kaluhiokalani, founder and chief executive officer of Pip Care. “While patients understand a planned surgery can reduce pain, improve mobility and change their quality of life, questions and fears about surgical procedures can lead to delays or even no-shows. Having a personal health coach to guide you along each step of your journey is key to ensuring patients complete surgery with confidence and have a smooth recovery.”
Pip Care’s end-to-end digital tool is built upon a best-in-class medical approach known as “Enhanced Recovery After Surgery,” or ERAS, which UPMC has been applying since 2015. Pip Care focuses on digitization and automation of existing perioperative and ERAS processes, workflows and protocols so that patients and providers can more smoothly navigate the surgical care process.
“We are excited to go on this journey with UPMC and Redesign Health,” Kaluhiokalani said. “We believe Pip Care’s approach will create better outcomes for health systems and help patients live healthier lives.”
About Pip Care
Pip Care helps guide surgery patients through the perioperative process with supportive personal health coaches, timely Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) program-based reminders, and a consumer-friendly mobile app designed to maximize surgical outcomes. We help reduce the educational and administrative burden for health care centers by providing the right information at the right time to improve patient confidence and compliance. By coaching patients to make simple, time-limited behavior modifications, Pip Care can speed recovery and reduce the chance of infections, length of stay or number of follow up ER visits. Pip Care was founded at Redesign Health in 2022 in partnership with UPMC. For more information: https://www.pipcare.com/
About UPMC
A $24 billion health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates more than 92,000 employees, 40 hospitals, 800 doctors’ offices and outpatient sites, and a more than 4 million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical insurer in western Pennsylvania. In the most recent fiscal year, UPMC contributed $1.5 billion in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region’s most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution, and paid more than $900 million in federal, state and local taxes. Working in close collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC shares its clinical, managerial, and technological skills worldwide through its innovation and commercialization arm, UPMC Enterprises, and through UPMC International. U.S. News consistently ranks UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside among the nation’s best hospitals in many specialties and ranks UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh on its Honor Roll of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals. For more information, go to UPMC.com.
About Redesign Health
Redesign Health is a company that powers innovation in healthcare by developing technologies, tools, and insights that lower the barriers to change across the industry. Since 2018, exceptional founders have built over two dozen companies at Redesign Health, impacting more than ten million lives across many aspects of the healthcare ecosystem including cancer care, teleaudiology, COVID-19 testing, metabolic health and more. To learn more, visit redesignhealth.com.
