Two portfolio companies are making progress in their work applying technology at UPMC that help clinicians deliver better care.
medCPU and Delta Brain are testing solutions within the health system – a key benefit startup companies can receive by partnering with UPMC Enterprises.
For medCPU, the company’s decision support solution has been running at UPMC Presbyterian since March, aiding clinicians in lowering post-surgery complications, length of stay, and readmissions. The solution, which was developed in partnership with UPMC Enterprises and employs natural language processing technology, provides real-time pathways support for the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) approach to perioperative care by alerting clinicians when ERAS protocols are not being followed.
UPMC Enterprises President Tal Heppenstall said a competing ERAS decision support tool from an existing system was creating “alert fatigue” by generating 30 to 40 alerts a day for some clinicians at Presbyterian. The medCPU tool generates a much lower volume of alerts.
medCPU’s solution will be in pilot for the rest of the year, Heppenstall said.
Meanwhile, Delta Brain is working with clinicians at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC to use sophisticated predictive analytics to determine where care can be provided outside the hospital to prevent unnecessary trips to the emergency department.
Adam Lichtl, the founder of Delta Brain, said he is working with UPMC Health Plan and primary care physicians at Children’s to explore opportunities to potentially deploy care coordinators into the community and treat patients earlier – before they need emergency intervention.
While the project is in its early stages, Lichtl said working directly inside a health system is providing invaluable experience.
“The combination of having technology running on cloud hardware and being embedded in an organization that’s committed to using data is a really great place to be,” he said.
The medCPU and Delta Brain projects are just two of the 22 opportunities within the Clinical Tools focus area that are being pursued by UPMC Enterprises. Another opportunity may be added to the list as Shiv Rao, MD, and several of his colleagues at Enterprises look at a project of their own.
Dr. Rao, executive vice president at UPMC Enterprises, is exploring artificial intelligence technologies and speech for health care. While details of the effort are being kept under wraps for the time being, Dr. Rao said there is tremendous opportunity to bring value to both patients and providers.
“We are leveraging all the infrastructure that we have at Enterprises to give us an unfair advantage in the marketplace,” he said.
