A new University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) startup, PreciPS, is working to help frontline care teams take an active role in identifying and resolving operational challenges they encounter in delivering care.
Frontline care teams include providers, nurses, pharmacists, care transitions staff, and the many other team members who contribute to the delivery of exceptional patient care.
Founded by Rick van Pelt, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at UAB Hospital, PreciPS is built on a methodology he has refined over years of working directly with care teams to improve performance, morale, and patient care.
PreciPS takes its name from the Precision Problem Solving methodology, an evolution of van Pelt’s original “3D Prioritization” approach, which focused on helping teams identify and prioritize challenges through a structured process of discovery, distillation, and definition.
PreciPS founder Rick van Pelt.
PreciPS will commercialize the Precision Problem Solving methodology by developing a scalable web-based tools and training platform that health systems teams have access to, which will enable them to solve complex problems and create sustained high-impact change that optimize care delivery, efficiency, and outcomes.
Unlike traditional improvement models that often begin with metrics or predefined standards, PreciPS starts by identifying frontline frustrations, issues and concerns related to their care environment. Teams share what matters most to them and what barriers they experience in delivering exceptional care. From there, the methodology guides participants toward identifying common themes, clarifying and prioritizing root causes, and developing system-based solutions through shared understanding of the problem.
“The first problem to solve is conflict,” van Pelt said. “If you don’t address the divisions and different points of view people bring into the room, you can’t get a shared understanding of what’s actually going on.”
One example is a redesign of the UAB Acute Care Surgery and Trauma
Division’s 95-bed inpatient service, where patients were handed off to new teams every time they transferred from one unit to the next, disrupting continuity of care. Using Precision Problem Solving, the team shifted to an integrated coverage model, which enabled patients to be followed by the same care team from admission through discharge. The change reduced average length stay by 1.4 days and cut trauma diversion days by 79 percent to virtually zero, with continued unprecedented gains in quality outcomes.
At UAB Hospital, van Pelt and his clinical transformation team have applied the approach in engagements with more than 20 clinical teams, primarily tackling long-standing operational challenges. Rather than incremental adjustments, the process has produced significant and sustained measurable improvements across the domains of efficiency, productivity, quality, safety, and staff wellness.
“When teams are engaged from the beginning and the solution becomes their own, it sticks,” van Pelt said. “It becomes the new way of doing things.”
The company has completed licensing, formed an LLC, and is now focused on developing the core technology application, also known as the minimum viable product (MVP). van Pelt is seeking developmental partners and funding to build the platform, with plans to pilot the 3D Prioritization tool internally at UAB before expanding to other healthcare systems.
While the initial focus is on clinical operations, van Pelt emphasized that PreciPS is not limited to health care.
“This is about complex problem solving,” van Pelt said. “It can be applied anywhere, at any industry, even personal challenges, but health care is where we’re starting.”
For more information about PreciPS, contact Rick van Pelt through email at
-- March 19, 2026