Roundtable Analytics, Inc. Awarded Additional National Science Foundation Grant
LARKSPUR, CA, September 8, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Roundtable Analytics, Inc., a Software as a Service (SaaS) company that leverages predictive analytics to improve the operational and financial performance of Emergency Departments, has been awarded an additional research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF SBIR Phase II grant of $750,000 brings the total capital raised by the sixteen-month old company to over $2.1 million.
Roundtable Analytics’ Emergency Department Strategy Lab (EDSL) helps hospitals reduce overcrowding in patient waiting rooms, decrease patient length of stay, and improve patient care and satisfaction. The current version of Roundtable’s EDSL allows healthcare systems to easily simulate operational changes and quickly identify an operational strategy that improves patient flow from the waiting room through the emergency department. The latest NSF grant will fund the R&D effort to extend Roundtable Analytics' existing solution beyond the walls of the ED and into the inpatient beds of the hospital – targeting the chronic and costly problem of boarding. By addressing management decisions – within both the ED and the critical processes related to moving patients out of the ED – hospitals can further improve their financial results – by millions of dollars per year.
During the initial NSF grants, Roundtable Analytics’ research partners included the University of Florida and East Carolina University. With the NSF Phase II grant, the company’s research partners will expand to include the University of North Carolina and selected for-profit hospitals.
About Roundtable Analytics, Inc.
Emergency Departments are considered the gateway to a hospital and account for nearly 50% of hospital admissions and revenues. Between 1995 and 2010, the number of ED visits per year increased by 34% – to over 136 million – while the number of EDs serving this demand decreased by 11%. It is expected that in 2016 the number of visits will exceed 150 million. The result of this surge in demand is widespread overcrowding, negative health outcomes as well as the increased costs associated with longer inpatient length of stays. To address this urgent need, Roundtable Analytics, Inc. created an easy to use predictive analytics software service called the Emergency Department Strategy Lab (EDSL).
Roundtable Analytics’ cloud-based EDSL allows health systems to consider and compare emergency department operational strategies through a predictive analytics engine grounded in simulation modeling. Leveraging each ED’s unique data, the customized ED Strategy Lab allows decision makers to simulate and evaluate the consequences, both intended and unintended, of any change to their ED’s operations -- prior to committing any resources. Rather than continue to manage their ED’s on a reactive basis, ED managers can prospectively select a data driven operational strategy and eliminate the risks of suboptimal patient care and financial losses that can occur during costly trial-and-error periods. In doing so EDs are realizing tremendous benefits including reduced waiting times, less patients leaving the waiting room without being seen, improved staffing strategies that better match resources to demand, decreased overall length of stay, and improved patient satisfaction.
Funded by a combination of National Science Foundation grants and private equity, the company created research partnerships with two major medical research universities, which led to the development of the Emergency Department Strategy Lab. Roundtable Analytics launched the commercial version of EDSL earlier this year, which is currently installed at five EDs.
Source: Roundtable Analytics, Inc.