Mente Receives NSF SBIR Phase II Award

‍August 14, 2023 - Mente has been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This Phase II follows our earlier NSF Phase I work and supports the next stage of R&D and commercialization: building predictive management tools for surgical instruments that help hospitals run more efficient, reliable operating rooms.

Wes Hill, CEO of Mente, was thrilled to receive the award: 

This Phase II award lets us build on what we proved in Phase I and turn it into a system hospitals can deploy at scale.

What the Phase II supports

The Phase II project focuses on predictive management of surgical instruments: using instrument-level usage data to inform what should be supplied, when it should be supplied, and how supply can be streamlined without increasing intraoperative risk. The intent is practical. Hospitals need reliable evidence that supports tray optimization decisions, reduces sterile processing burden, and helps maintain improvements over time.

Instrument Tracking Provides New OR Data

Hospitals already measure a lot about perioperative performance: case times, turnover, first-case starts, cancellations. What they typically do not have is a high-resolution view of what happened at the instrument level.

Tagging and tracking individual surgical instruments creates a completely new and uniquely informative data stream. Every surgical instrument is highly specialized. When a surgeon chooses and uses an instrument, that choice carries hidden information: it can reflect the surgeon’s immediate goal, the state of the patient, and what phase of the operation the team is in. Capturing that sequence turns instrument movement into structured data that can be used to reduce waste, improve reliability, and build a clearer picture of what is actually happening during surgery.

About the NSF SBIR program

NSF’s SBIR program supports startups developing scientifically grounded innovations with clear commercial potential. Phase II awards fund continued R&D for solutions that have demonstrated feasibility in Phase I and are ready to mature toward broader deployment.

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.