AI-Based Test to Assess Risk of Cognitive Disorders After Surgery
Short Business Description:
Postoperative delirium (POD) is a severe cognitive complication occurring in 20% of surgical patients aged 60+. There are no treatments once symptoms arise.
Instead, the focus is on prophylactic interventions, which are too costly to offer every patient. PIPRA developed an AI-based preoperative risk prediction software that identifies patients who are most at risk and will benefit from targeted prophylactic intervention, thereby improving patient outcomes and saving costs for hospitals.
Disorientation, memory loss, and difficulties in speech are symptoms that occur in 20% of surgical patients aged 60+. Postoperative delirium (POD) is an enormous problem, as it leads to adverse outcomes such as a 25% mortality within one month, double the risk of nursing home admission, costs of 1-2 B EUR to health insurers in Germany alone, and 38% of affected patients end up suffering long-term cognitive decline and dementia. There are no treatments available once symptoms start presenting. Instead, the focus is on prevention. Many highly effective prophylactic treatments that can reduce POD by up to 40% have been developed. These treatments are cheaper than a patient with delirium, however they are still too expensive to administer to every patient.
PIPRA (short for Pre-Interventional Preventive Risk Assessment) is developing a novel, AI-based preoperative risk prediction software which identifies patients at risk before they undergo surgery. These specific patients can benefit from targeted prophylactic intervention that reduce the risk of POD by up to 40%.
Patients should not be leaving hospitals sicker than they were when they got there. Knowing which patients are at risk of postoperative complications can help reduce the incidence dramatically, improving patient outcomes while avoiding unnecessary and expensive treatments. PIPRA’s economic impact is an average cost saving of 2M CHF annually for every hospital in Switzerland. These savings will increase since the population at risk, peope over 60, will double in the next 30 years.