Novel Digital Health Platform with Virtual Health Coach for Improving Perioperative Patient Outcomes and Care Coordination

SUMMARY In the US, 48 million surgeries are performed annually. Despite medical and surgical advancements, postoperative complications are the third leading cause of death. Perioperative risk varies between patients based on their health and surgical procedure(s). Patients with intermediate or high perioperative risk experience extended hospital stays, higher readmission rates, and frequent adverse events, including death. Many higher risk patients have modifiable risk factors. The healthcare industry is prioritizing the advancement of perioperative care to reduce postoperative complications and improve patient outcomes by modifying risk factors through medical optimization and prehabilitation. However, patients can find the perioperative journey complex and impersonal. Patients often don’t have access to a tailored preparation plan and personal guidance, emotional support, and motivation, despite clinical teams providing a high level of perioperative care detail. Furthermore, perioperative guidance can be fragmented and confusing with information coming from multiple sources and unclear tasks. Therefore, there is an unmet need to provide patients with comprehensive perioperative care guidance and support with a more personalized, enhanced human touch to reduce postoperative complications. Pip Care is developing a personalized, interactive surgical journey platform – complete with a live health coach – to optimize the perioperative care process. Our platform, Pip, works seamlessly with any electronic medical record, thus making it easier and more efficient for care providers to support patients. Additionally, via our platform, a health coach completes a health intake to create a personalized perioperative care plan, meets regularly with the patient to encourage goal accomplishment, and facilitates care coordination. Pip empowers patients to participate in the preoperative optimization goals by breaking down a patient's healthcare plan into definable, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-complete tasks, and a Health Coach helps to keep the patient on track to achieve these goals through education and motivation. In this Fast-Track STTR, our goal is to expand the Pip platform and evaluate the platform among surgical patients undergoing a variety of surgeries. We propose to (1) develop new clinical pathway modules for additional clinical comorbidities, surgery types, and coordination of care; (2) assess feasibility, usability acceptability, and appropriateness; (3) conduct a clinical study and assess our platform’s effects on patient clinical outcomes; and (4) assess patient-centered outcomes related to the Pip digital health platform and health coaches. Successful completion of this proposed project will be a major step in advancing the development of our platform for perioperative care management, ultimately improving patient outcomes and lowering healthcare costs.