CVS Health Corp.’s venture capital arm is among the investors who are backing a new health technology platform aiming to smooth out the wrinkles that come with transitions of care.
Kouper Inc. has publicly launched its tech with a mission to improve patients’ journey form emergency rooms or inpatient and urgent-care settings. With the help of artificial intelligence tools, the Kouper team based in New York City, San Francisco and Nashville is looking to improve patient engagement, automate appointment scheduling and efficiently collect data that integrates with the health records systems of hospitals and ambulatory providers.
Also backing Kouper are investment firms General Catalyst and 25Madison. Combined with CVS Health Ventures and some angel investors, they have committed $10 million to scale Kouper and bring on more health systems and other risk-bearing entities, including payers. In stealth mode, the company worked with LifePoint Health Inc. and Henry Ford Health, among others.
“The journey through the American health care system is fraught with challenges and can be particularly difficult when transitioning from the hospital to the home setting,” Salman Ali, Kouper’s CEO and a co-founder. “A combination of our team’s lived experience and iteration with our incubation partner 25m Health laid the foundation for Kouper and our absolute focus on creating a personalized transition of care experience for every patient leaving the hospital.”
It’s an area that transitional care is primed to help with: A 2022 study from Northwestern Medicine showed patients who had received transitional care upon being discharged from Northwestern Memorial Hospital incurred roughly half the healthcare costs over the ensuing year than patients discharged according to standard practice.
