Initializing a meeting is never done and this timestamp value is hard coded to 0.

As far I can see perhaps the first attendee/moderator going to BBB session should initialize and give it a timestamp value? It would be cheaper to check from db if BBB session has been started or not compared to API call to BBB server (right?).

I suggest $meeting->initialized should be give a timestamp-value and that value could be used to check status of BBB -session.

If there is some other future us for this parameter, I'd be happy to learn more.