Digital health start-up Capreolos GmbH launches Ready4OP app
20.06.2023 13:50
Capreolos' first product, the Ready4OP app, is a digital patient companion for preparing for major operations in the thoracic and abdominal cavity and is based on many years of surgical expertise and broad scientific and clinical know-how. The app supports patients with generally understandable knowledge about major surgical procedures and thus gives them more security when talking to the doctor.
Capreolos GmbH (formerly Patronus Health GmbH), developer of an interactive, app-based prehabilitation program for patients, doctors and clinics, announced the official launch of its first product, the Ready4OP app. The digital companion helps patients prepare for major operations. In the Ready4OP app, Capreolos provides scientifically based information, useful knowledge about operations and hospital stays, and a question guide for doctor-patient discussions. This is intended to help patients and relatives to optimally prepare for the first preliminary consultation with their surgeon. In everyday medical practice, general practitioners and other non-surgical specialists are often unable to fully cover and provide this support.
Prof. Andreas Schnitzbauer, Chief Executive Officer of Capreolos GmbH and Deputy Clinical Director of the Clinic for General and Visceral Surgery at the University Hospital Frankfurt, emphasized: “From our many years of surgical experience, we know that up to two thirds of citizens have problems finding reliable health information and to understand them. This is especially true before major cancer operations. In addition, many patients cannot correctly classify their findings. Both result in them not being able to ask their doctor the right questions to get the explanations they need. In addition, in stressful everyday hospital life, doctors cannot recognize the different knowledge of patients or assume specialist knowledge. This is where the Ready4OP app comes into play as a digital patient textbook and, through patient empowerment, strengthens autonomy in dealing with medical documents and communication with specialized doctors.”
Charlotte Detemble, Chief Operating Officer of Capreolos GmbH and doctor at the University Hospital Frankfurt, said: “As a doctor, I would like patients to have the opportunity to discuss their upcoming operation with me and my colleagues on an equal footing. The Ready4OP app helps the patient to be well prepared. This is our first step: Capreolos has set itself the task of prehabilitation as a whole - that means we focus on the preoperative phase, in which the patient is optimally prepared for a major surgical procedure through knowledge, building strength, mobility and endurance as well as through ideal nutrition intervention should be prepared. We know from numerous scientific studies that prehabilitation reduces complications after operations and thus also the need for corresponding expensive therapies, thus not only contributing to significantly better patient outcomes, but also to cost savings in the healthcare system as a whole. Capreolos should be the first point of contact for doctors and patients alike on the subject of prehabilitation, i.e. the best possible preparation for major operations.”
Dr. Dora Zmuc, Chief Business Development Officer at Capreolos and the initial idea behind the Ready4OP app, explained: “The Ready4OP app is our first product in a still young market. We designed the app as a living platform that allows quick adjustments and the addition of additional modules in a short time and takes ideas from patients, doctors and other customers! The Ready4OP app is Capreolos GmbH’s first step towards building a comprehensive prehabilitation program.”
The Ready4OP app is available free of charge in the Apple Appstore and the Google Playstore. It is a learning tool for patients before major operations. In addition to procedures for cancer in the abdomen, chest or breast, this also includes bariatric (weight-reducing) procedures for heavy people or hernia closures after previous operations. The digital patient textbook guides you through 9 categories and 52 subcategories and includes information on how to optimally communicate with your doctors and easily understand complicated issues, how patients can optimally prepare in the weeks before the procedure (prehabilitation) and how to proceed and what can look like after the hospital stay.
About Capreolos GmbH
Capreolos GmbH (formerly Patronus Health GmbH) is a digital health start-up that aims to give patients and doctors access to structured prehabilitation measures before major operations. Based on scientific evidence and medical excellence, Capreolos wants to lead the way in quality of care and patient safety while strengthening patient autonomy. For this approach, the company was awarded the E-Health Award from the state of Hesse in September 2021. Capreolos was founded by three active clinicians with proven expertise in business finance, patient safety and quality management. Together the founders Prof. Dr. Andreas Schnitzbauer, Charlotte Detemble and Dr. Dora Žmuc has extensive experience in national and international cutting-edge medicine and patient-oriented research. Mark Siller joined the founding team as an expert in app development. The company, founded in August 2021, is based in Bad Vilbel. Due to a similarity of names in the industry, Patronus Health GmbH was renamed Capreolos GmbH in June 2023.