A Canadian health tech startup is betting that smarter supply tracking can save surgery centers real money.
And as procedure volume continues to shift into the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) setting, particularly for orthopedics, GI, ophthalmology and cardiovascular care, operators are facing increasing pressure to improve charge accuracy and maintain profitability.
AssistIQ, an artificial intelligence company focused on surgical and procedural supply management, has raised $11.5 million in Series A funding. The company’s AI-powered platform, AIQ Capture, uses computer vision to track every supply and implant item used during a procedure to reduce missed charges.
“AssistIQ is built to be lightweight and easy to adopt; it runs on a standard iPad and integrates directly with systems like Epic, without requiring any custom hardware or major IT lift,” AssistIQ CEO Lisa Israelovitch told Ambulatory Surgery Center News. “That makes it a great fit for ASCs, where teams are lean and margins are tight.”
The funding round was led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Tamarind Hill, a return investor.
Battery Ventures Principal Brandon Gleklen will join the company’s board, AssistIQ said in a press release.
AssistIQ is already live in several hospital systems, including Northwell Health in New York and Owensboro Health Regional Hospital in Kentucky. At Northwell, the platform is being rolled out across all operating rooms.
Northwell also served as a design partner, helping shape AssistIQ’s integration into clinical and supply chain workflows.
The system captures product use with standard iPads rather than expensive infrastructure, a key design choice that opens the door for adoption in leaner outpatient environments, CTO Thierry Wong told ASC News in an email.
“We built AssistIQ side by side with clinicians because we know that if a tool isn’t seamless for them, it won’t get used and it won’t deliver ROI,” Wong said. “The platform fits directly into existing workflows, and can be integrated with EHRs. … Our AIQ Supply Cloud is a proprietary AI database that works behind the scenes to recognize millions of products in real time without barcodes or manual entry or reliance on the hospital ERP.”
The platform’s proprietary AIQ Supply Cloud can recognize millions of surgical products, enabling accurate charge capture rates of 98% or higher, the company said in a press release. In some deployments, AssistIQ claims to have uncovered potential supply savings of up to 25%, while also reducing time spent on clinical documentation.
The company says it is planning additional deployments across U.S. health systems in the coming months, with a focus on expanding Epic integrations and streamlining operations in both inpatient and outpatient environments.
