Pip Care, a health tech company focused on improving the surgical journey for patients and care teams, has announced the successful close of its Series A funding round, raising $5 million in equity. The round was led by A1 Health Ventures with continued support from UPMC Enterprises. This milestone follows the company’s recent $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch a trial of its platform with 2,000 patients.
Pip Care partners with health systems and surgical specialty teams to enhance patient care before, during, and after surgery by combining a smartphone app with real-life health coaches. The app helps patients adhere to evidence-based protocols, such as pre-surgical preparation and post-surgical recovery, while health coaches provide personalized, one-on-one guidance.
Transforming Surgical Care through Tech and Human Support
The Pip Care platform provides patients with perioperative and post-operative instructions, specific to their surgery and surgeon, which are easily accessible through a mobile app. Paired with this is a telehealth coach who regularly checks in with patients to offer real-time support, ensuring they stay on track with their recovery plan. This approach has already shown promising results, as recent research indicates that patients using Pip Care spent nearly one day less in the hospital and halved their risk of readmission within a week of surgery.
Kathy Kaluhiokalani, founder and CEO of Pip Care, expressed the significance of the funding in fueling the company’s next phase of growth. “This raise reaffirms the work we have done so far and fuels our next phase of growth to ensure we deliver the most impactful, tech-enabled, human-powered medical optimization platform to health systems, surgical care teams and their patients,” she stated.
A Win-Win for Patients and Health Systems
Pip Care’s unique combination of digital tools and human interaction leads to better patient engagement, adherence, and overall satisfaction, according to Rachel Kern, managing director at A1 Health Ventures. “Pip Care’s differentiated service offering deploys health coaches to conduct live sessions with patients, enhancing patient engagement, adherence, and satisfaction. This ultimately drives better outcomes for patients, lowers costs for health systems, and enables standardization, consistency, and reduction in administrative burden for care teams,” Kern noted.
The high-tech platform not only improves patient outcomes but also reduces the administrative workload for care teams, saving them time and enabling clinicians to focus on higher-level tasks. Pip Care moves over 20 patient touch points to its app, saving more than 10 hours of front office time per patient.
Building on Strong Foundations
Launched in 2022, Pip Care is the first company born out of a collaboration between Redesign Health, a global healthcare venture builder, and UPMC Enterprises, the innovation and venture capital arm of UPMC. The company has quickly gained recognition for its patient-centric approach to surgical care. “Pip Care is an example of the clinician-originated, patient-focused companies we value at UPMC Enterprises,” said Aman Mahajan, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., chief medical officer of Pip Care and senior vice president of health innovation at UPMC Enterprises.
The platform assists patients with pre-surgical preparation through ‘prehabilitation,’ a process that helps improve nutrition, physical fitness, psychological health, and lifestyle choices such as smoking cessation before surgery. After surgery, Pip Care continues to guide patients through discharge instructions, wound care, and pain management.
With its proven ability to enhance patient outcomes, streamline processes for care teams, and reduce hospital stays, Pip Care is poised to expand its impact in the healthcare industry. The Series A funding will support the company in scaling its platform, expanding its partnerships, and continuing to revolutionize the surgical journey.
Bass, Berry & Sims served as outside counsel to Pip Care during its Series A round.
