UPMC Partners with medCPU to Rapidly Expand Innovative Clinical Decision-Support Technology
February 29, 2016
UPMC and medCPU Inc. today announced a far-reaching strategic partnership in which UPMC, one of the nation’s leading integrated health systems, will take a majority interest in this technology innovator, become a customer of medCPU’s real-time decision support solutions and co-develop additional products with the goal of improving patient outcomes.
As part of this transaction, UPMC has commenced a tender offer to purchase stock from existing non-employee medCPU shareholders and expects to hold majority ownership in the privately held company when the offer is completed in the second quarter of this year. In addition to the stock purchase, UPMC will lead an investment round of $35 million in new capital to accelerate the expansion of New York-based medCPU. Existing medCPU shareholder Merck Global Health Innovation Fund also is participating in this round.
“Our partnership with medCPU will provide UPMC with technology and solutions that will be immediately valuable to our clinicians and patients. Longer term, this powerful technology will enable the development of other data-dependent applications in such critical areas as care management, population health and consumer engagement,” said Tal Heppenstall, president of UPMC Enterprises, the commercialization arm of UPMC which led this investment. “medCPU is a perfect example of the kind of technological innovation nurtured by UPMC Enterprises to help us transform the delivery of care, not only at UPMC but around the world.”
medCPU, which already counts more than 60 hospital facilities among its clients, is opening a Pittsburgh office, where it will hire more than 20 engineers and other staff to work with UPMC to co-develop additional products and to enhance its existing solutions.
“We are excited to have UPMC as a majority partner and investor,” said Sonia Ben-Yehuda, president and co-founder, medCPU. “Having access to the clinical, technological and operational expertise of one of the country’s leading integrated health care providers and insurance systems will enable medCPU to rapidly expand our current capabilities and leverage our technology to greatly impact an industry that is moving quickly to value-based care.”
Through its revolutionary, seamless technology, medCPU’s solution addresses the health care IT challenges of interoperability, capturing all relevant patient data, and understanding free text, dictation and structured data from electronic medical records and ancillary systems.
According to Eyal Ephrat, MD, chief executive officer and co-founder of medCPU, “Our solution provides precise, real-time decision support prompts to clinicians without interrupting their workflow.”
This novel technology overcomes many of the obstacles that currently make it difficult to aggregate and normalize information across siloed data systems. medCPU’s solution makes it possible to combine rich, highly accurate information with extensive clinical best-practice content and services—resulting in reduced “alert fatigue” and improved response rates, thus avoiding clinical errors and reducing costs.
“Our vision at UPMC is to enable care providers to deliver the right care to our patients every time. Our partnership with medCPU will help drive the clinical pathways developed by our leading clinicians to the point of care, where it matters most,” said Steven Shapiro, MD, chief medical and scientific officer of UPMC.
