The Ascendco Experience Lab is a working sterile processing environment inside our Chicago headquarters, built on a simple belief: the industry shouldn’t have to choose between what’s proven and what’s possible. Come see the two working as one.
SEPTEMBER 2, 2026, 4:30PM – 6 PM I DOORS OPEN AT 4:30 PM FOR THE 5:00PM RIBBON CUTTING I CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Join Ascendco founders, Brian Reed and Welsh Harris, and the Ascendco team for the grand opening of the Experience Lab. Cut the ribbon with us, tour the space, and be among the first to step onto the floor. Cocktails, conversation, and a first look await.
The Experience Lab is a working simulation of a real sterile processing department, fully equipped with instruments, trays, tracking systems, and the workflows that tie them together. Visitors don’t watch a demo. They step onto the floor and use the same technology they would use in their own department.
Healthcare is one of the most risk-averse industries. When a hospital is asked to replace a system that touches every surgical case it runs, a slide deck isn’t enough. We believe in radical transparency: show people exactly what they’re getting, in an environment that mirrors exactly where they’ll use it.
This is the first immersive experience where a supply chain director, a CNO, and an SPD tech can walk in together, follow the same workflow, and walk out aligned. Visitors meet the people who actually built the software, so their feedback shapes what comes next.
The Experience Lab is for everyone who touches the surgical instrument lifecycle, from SPD technicians and CNOs to supply chain directors and hospital leaders. It’s the rare space where all of them can walk the same floor and leave aligned on what modern sterile processing can be.
INSIDE THE LAB
Operating Room
Enter a simulated OR and follow instruments throughout a surgical case, from tray check-in and counting to utilization tracking and quality event documentation, for greater accountability and data-driven tray optimization.
Decontamination
Experience how digital workflows guide technicians through decontamination with real-time instructions, alerts, and quality documentation, improving compliance and consistency in one of the most complex areas of sterile processing.
Assembly
Build complete surgical trays. Manage missing instruments, substitutions, and quality checks using electronic count sheets and instrument-level traceability that improve accuracy and readiness for patient care.
Storage Room
Explore how inventory visibility, case picking, replenishment monitoring, and expiration tracking work together to ensure instruments and supplies are ready when needed, reducing waste and simplifying operations.
Multi-Purpose Room
See how instruments enter the health system through loaner receiving, procurement, inspection, and inventory onboarding, and how connected processes improve supplier coordination, accuracy, and lifecycle management.
The Experience Lab is where sterile processing stops being told what's possible and starts seeing it firsthand. Our goal is simple: make innovation the standard, not the exception.
WHY CHICAGO
We put our roots downtown, at the heart of the city, because meaningful innovation happens when everyone gets a seat at the table. Ascendco is one of the only platforms in sterile processing doing genuine enterprise upgrades at scale. Traditional approaches, done in the modern way.
Experience how sterile processing is evolving. Work inside real workflows, see what’s possible when technology and practice move together, and help shape where the field goes next.
A proving ground for innovation. Emerging technology meets real hospital workflows, so the best ideas find a path forward and the whole industry advances.
A new home for surgical operations innovation, where health systems, founders, and clinicians come together in person to push the field forward, right downtown.
