Avant-garde Health

Avant-garde Health provides a healthcare analytics platform targeting hospitals, surgery centers, and physicians, designed to enhance the value of care. The company's business model is centered on a Software as a Service (SaaS) tool that equips healthcare providers with actionable insights to optimize costs and patient outcomes. Its clientele includes notable institutions like Penn State Health Hershey Medical Center, Gundersen Health System, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Revenue is generated by providing these organizations with AI-driven analytics and detailed action plans.

The core offering, the CareMeasurement analytics platform, focuses on surgical and procedure-based care. It utilizes a methodology known as Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC), co-developed by Professor Robert Kaplan, to precisely measure the true costs of care delivery by tracking personnel time and resources for each patient. The platform normalizes and analyzes data from electronic medical records to provide insights on operating room efficiency, medical supply costs, and care processes that facilitate timely and safe patient discharge. It allows providers to benchmark their performance against other institutions, identify opportunities for improvement in areas like surgical coding accuracy and patient length of stay, and analyze outcomes such as readmission rates and complications. The company also offers a specific software solution for organizations participating in Medicare's bundled payment models.

The firm's development was methodical, initially focusing on joint replacements in 2015 before expanding to spine surgery and subsequently other surgical areas to ensure clinical relevance. A significant milestone was a $12 million Series A funding round in March 2022, led by Fulcrum Equity Partners with participation from investors like General Catalyst and Founder Collective, bringing its total funding to approximately $16.5 million. This capital was aimed at expanding the team and accelerating the company's mission.