Mente Licenses Technology from Duke to Improve Operating Room Efficiency

May 24, 2020 - Mente has entered into an agreement with Duke University to license technology developed and validated at Duke Health. The partnership supports Mente’s mission to help hospitals reduce operating room waste by understanding instrument usage at a level of detail that has traditionally been impossible to capture reliably.

Technology for Hospital Quality Improvement

The licensed technology uses RFID-based tracking to generate instrument usage data during surgery. That data can be used to streamline surgical instrument trays, reduce unnecessary reprocessing burden, and support more consistent, data-driven supply decisions.

In early pilot work at Duke Health, the approach demonstrated meaningful reductions in instrument supply while maintaining clinical functionality, including approximately 50% reductions in several procedures such as craniotomy for tumor, CMC arthroplasty, and breast lumpectomy.

This partnership empowers hospitals to achieve optimal outcomes by providing exactly what care teams need,

said Dr. Patrick Codd, a practicing neurosurgeon at Duke Health and one of the inventors of the technology. Dr. Codd emphasized the importance of predictive analytics in modernizing operating room practices, highlighting the value of real-time data in streamlining surgical counts in the operating room and ensuring that each instrument provided serves a critical purpose.

An Exclusive, Worldwide License

The agreement provides Mente with an exclusive, worldwide license for a key patent application, software, and data. Jeff Welch, PhD, the Director of New Ventures at the Duke Office of Translation & Commercialization was enthusiastic about the agreement:

The Mente team brings a unique combination of clinical expertise, engineering excellence, and strategic vision to this initiative. Their leadership, tenacity, and role as named inventors make them the perfect team to bring this transformative technology to market, ensuring it delivers on its full potential for improving hospital operations and patient care.

Mente is excited to formalize this partnership with Duke and to continue developing surgeon-approved solutions that emphasize reliability, efficiency, and sustainability. By combining real-time instrument usage data with perioperative analytics, Mente aims to help hospitals reduce unnecessary work for OR and sterile processing teams while ensuring the right instruments are available when they are needed.

About Mente

Mente is a surgeon-founded company building a data-driven operating room. We capture instrument usage automatically, then use that evidence to help hospitals and sterile processing teams supply fewer instruments while preserving clinical functionality and surgeon satisfaction.