Research Shows Pip Care “Significantly Improves Patient Outcomes and Satisfaction with Surgery.”

Research, published today in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, demonstrated that patients who participated in a pilot program at the UPMC Center for Perioperative Care, and used Pip Care, experienced optimized perioperative care, an improved surgical experience, and better clinical outcomes.

“Study after study has shown that patients are healthier and have better surgical outcomes when they adhere to a perioperative care plan – but ensuring that adherence is easier said than done,” said senior author Aman Mahajan, M.D., Ph.D., Peter and Eva Safar Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Pitt. “So, verifying that this hybrid digital-telemedicine platform is both easy for patients and clinicians to use and significantly improves patient outcomes and satisfaction with surgery is a welcome clinical advance.”

For the pilot, researchers compared patients enrolled in Pip Care who were scheduled for elective abdominal, spine, or total joint replacement surgery to peers scheduled for the same surgeries at the same hospitals who did not use Pip Care. The patients who were selected to use Pip Care were introduced to the app and their personal health coach two to four weeks before surgery and continued to engage with the app and their health coaches for up to four weeks after surgery.

As a result of using the Pip Care app and working with a dedicated health coach on a personalized plan to prepare, undergo, and recover from surgery, on average, Pip Care patients reduced their length of stay in the hospital after surgery to 2.4 days, while non-Pip patients stayed in the hospital for over three days. Pip Care helped reduce the median length of stay by 1.1 days. Additionally, Pip Care patients reduced their risk of being readmitted to the hospital by 49% within a week of discharge, compared to their non-Pip counterparts.

Patients demonstrated high levels of engagement with the Pip Care app and high satisfaction with their assigned Pip Care health coach. On average, patients engaged with their health coach nearly seven times leading up to and after surgery, and over 80% attended coaching sessions at least once a week. In follow-up surveys, patients reported high – 4.8 out of 5 points – scores for satisfaction with the app and 4.9 out of 5 points for their health coaches.

“We are incredibly proud of these results and excited to show that Pip Care is exactly the platform solution patients and care teams need before surgery, at the time of surgery, and through the recovery process,” says Kathy Kaluhiokalani, Founder and CEO of Pip Care, “and we look forward to implementing Pip Care in hospital systems across the country to improve outcomes while supporting patients and care teams.” 

To learn more, read the press release and journal publication.