Procirca arose from the UPMC Artificial Heart Program and today is a clinical healthcare
services business focused on cardiovascular surgery, clinical neurophysiology, perioperative blood management, and clinical engineering. For more than 25 years, Procirca has led the way in bringing state-of-the-art technologies and therapies to market. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of UPMC, its clients have access to world-class academic resources, clinical research capabilities, and physician domain experts. Procirca provides unsurpassed clinical expertise and brings patient-centered, quality-focused care to its partners.
Procirca offers perfusion, neuromonitoring, blood management, mechanical circulatory support, and clinical engineering services to more than 60 hospitals. The experience gained from the breadth and depth of its client base enables it to design custom solutions which yield clinical and economic benefits.
Per McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member and Procirca President Steven Winowich, the company provides services to about 17,000 patients a year, including 4,000 open-heart surgeries, half of which are in non-UPMC hospitals. About half of the company’s business comes from perfusion services, which are machines that keep blood flowing to the heart and lungs during heart transplants and other complicated cardiac procedures. While that is the biggest contributor to revenue, Mr. Winowich said growth is coming primarily from two other business lines: neuromonitoring and mechanical circulatory support.
Managing cost-effective and high-quality healthcare services business lines is a complex undertaking, encompassing staffing and personnel management, equipment and disposable management, quality assurance and improvement, compliance concerns, and program design. Procirca integrates these components into a program customized to its clients’ needs.
“These are new technologies, and it’s very difficult to train a group in any hospital,” said McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Christian Bermudez, MD, Chief of UPMC’s Division of Cardiothoracic Transplantation. Dr. Bermudez uses Procirca technicians to help with his surgeries at UPMC and other hospitals where he has set up programs.
“When you want to educate and implement these techniques elsewhere, you need a team,” he said. “There is a growing need in this area, and very few companies are able to support it.”
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty members who are on Procirca’s clinical leadership team include Robert Kormos, MD, Jonathan Waters, MD, Christian Bermudez, MD, Harvey Borovetz, PhD, Marc Simon, MD, and Jeffrey Teuteberg, MD. Along with Mr. Winowich, Richard Schaub is part of the executive team.
Illustration: Procirca.
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