The Innovation Project: Sonia Ben-Yehuda

Sonia Ben-Yehuda is President and Cofounder of medCPU.

Editor's Note: As of Feb. 13, 2017, Sonia Ben-Yehuda is no longer affiliated with UPMC. 

Sonia Ben-Yehuda, President and Cofounder
medCPU

“We like to say that health care is personal, technology is critical and medCPU is both,” says Sonia Ben-Yehuda, president and co-founder of medCPU.

The company provides real-time patient-care advice through medCPU AdvisorTM, a technology platform that offers medical providers prompt, accurate and reliable advice while they meet with patients. 

“We founded medCPU to help patients get the best health care, plain and simple,” says Ben-Yehuda. “Though we have created a tool that doctors and nurses use and that benefits health care organizations, at its core it’s designed to make patients healthier and happier.”

​medCPU is made up largely of physicians and nurses, including Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Eyal Ephrat, MD, so the team knows firsthand the challenges and rewards of practicing medicine. 

“From the start, we made sure to address the realities of the fast-paced hospital environment. Our platform respects clinicians’ time and expertise, and it puts patients first,” says Ben-Yehuda.

​medCPU has offices in New York City, Tel Aviv and — since partnering with UPMC Enterprises — Pittsburgh. 

“Through UPMC, we get access to the ‘living lab’ of the UPMC hospital network and benefit from the knowledge and expertise of their clinicians as well as their business and operations professionals,” says Ben-Yehuda.

While the company boasts cutting-edge technology and clients in more than 60 medical facilities in the United States and abroad, Ben-Yehuda says medCPU’s idea of success lies elsewhere.

“Success is more than looking at our bottom line or fawning over our technology (though we love to do that; our engineers are top-notch),” says Ben-Yehuda. “It’s hearing stories about patients whose lives were changed or even saved. That means more to us than abstract figures ever could.”
 

Sponsor

A leader in health care innovation, UPMC Enterprises focuses on developing technologies that can dramatically improve health care. For example, recently UPMC obtained a financial interest in medCPU.

“We can make bold investments in technologies that stand to have the biggest payoffs for people’s health and well-being,” says Tal Heppenstall, president of UPMC Enterprises and treasurer of UPMC. 

Along with its own advancements, UPMC Enterprises is dedicated to success and innovations in health care throughout the region.

“There’s no place like Pittsburgh for what we do,” says Heppenstall. “There’s a vibrant, curious and growing community of people with interest in health care, information technology and entrepreneurship. We support innovation [in Pittsburgh] for the same reason we invest $880 million a year in community benefits—it’s our home.”