Intelycare Raised $45 Million to Optimize Use of the Existing Nursing Staff

IntelyCare, an intelligent solution enabling healthcare facilities to optimize their existing nursing staff and augment it when needed, announced on February 20th it has raised $45M in new equity and debt financing to address the nationwide nursing workforce shortage.

The system needs to face nurse shortage due to baby boomers aging

The U.S. is projected to experience a shortage of Registered Nurses (RNs) that is expected to intensify as Baby Boomers age and the need for health care workers grows. The disparity is anticipated to reach 1 million nurses by 2030. Meanwhile, nursing schools across the country are working towards expanding their capacity to meet the increasing demand for care, caused both by the needs of an older population, and the move toward national healthcare reform. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) considers the nurse shortage to be a serious healthcare concern, and it has been working with schools, policymakers, nursing organizations, and the media to put the matter in the spotlight. AACN is trying to pinpoint strategies, use its resources to shape legislation, and form collaborations to address the shortage.

Some good signs are already starting to show. Since 2012, the number of nurse practitioners in Illinois has grown almost threefold to more than 12,000, and the number is expected to keep growing. Since last June, Illinois has allowed nurse practitioners to get licenses that permit them to work independently of doctors; this growth is expected to continue.

More nurses are needed, and not only to care for the elderly. Beginning in 2020, some Chicago parents will receive unexpected but much-needed help, via a pilot program announced last  November. This system will provide thousands of newborn babies and their parents with home visits from a registered nurse. City officials estimate more than 4,000 families will be eligible for the service this year at the four pilot hospitals. The program will be evaluated with help from the University of Illinois-Chicago Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health before it is expanded over five years to all 17 birthing hospitals in the city, according to Dr. Allison Arwady, acting commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

What does IntelyCare offer and how is it helping nurses?

IntelyCare offers a platform and mobile app connecting nurses with opportunities in order to ensure their access to positions where they are needed to fill in shifts, all while reducing burnout and turnover. Advanced machine learning algorithms optimize matching and pricing, creating shifts before facilities know their own needs. This ensures the highest shift-fill rate in the industry while adding more than 20 percent capacity to the available workforce by using gig economics principles. This virtual workforce expansion lowers costs to facilities by reducing turnover and compliance penalties and ensures facilities can offer patients the needed support.

“Due to high patient-to-nurse ratios and frequent mandatory overtime, nurses experience greater burnout and dissatisfaction while patients have an increased risk of re-hospitalization and higher mortality risk,” said Chris Caulfield RN, NP-C, Co-Founder and Chief Nursing Officer, IntelyCare. “Out of all healthcare settings, post-acute care facilities experience these situations the most frequently and have the highest rates of nurse burnout, which is why we decided to develop our technology specifically for this care setting.”

The new funds will support IntelyCare’s innovative efforts to apply gig economics

The Series B round was led by new investor Endeavour Vision and includes Kaiser Permanente Ventures and Generator Ventures.

“As an investor in innovative medical and digital health technologies, we look for companies with disruptive solutions to the challenges facing today’s healthcare system,” said Rob Barmann, Senior Investment Director, at  Endeavour Vision. “IntelyCare’s rapid and significant growth demonstrates the value it is bringing to the nursing sector. With unique technology and an experienced team, the company is well-positioned to develop further, and we are proud to support it in its next phase of growth.”

This new investment will support IntelyCare’s innovative efforts to apply gig economics and advanced data science technology to close the gap between supply and demand, optimizing the employ of existing talent within the care industry.

“With rising rates of chronic conditions and an aging population, there is a critical need for new technologies to support the post-acute care workforce,” said Sam Brasch, Senior Managing Director and Vice President, Kaiser Permanente Ventures. “IntelyCare’s approach augments available nurses to help overcome these complex challenges, reduce burnout and attrition, and drive greater patient care.”

Recent results are an indicator for future expansion

The funding round could not have come at a better time since the recent results of IntelyCare are proving the market has an appetite for the company’s solution.

IntelyCare is one of the fastest-growing health tech startups in the Boston area:

• Revenue doubled over two consecutive years from 2017-2019
• Number of facilities served also doubled from 2018-2019
• Since 2017, it has filled more than 2 million shift hours, more than 1 million of those over the last nine months
• Shift fill rates are three times higher than the staffing industry average (of 25%)

“Since founding IntelyCare in 2016, the demand for our intelligent staffing solution has skyrocketed due to shifting industry dynamics and an intensifying discrepancy between availability and need,” said David Coppins, Co-Founder, and Chief Executive Officer, IntelyCare.

“Our company has grown exponentially in target regions with a severe need for nurses, and we’re poised to increase our market presence by more than 140 percent in the coming year. We see this as just the beginning; it’s an exciting time for IntelyCare, our nurses, and our customers as we revolutionize the traditional healthcare staffing model.”

About IntelyCare 

IntelyCare offers a digital workforce augmentation platform that uses a gig-model application and advanced data science to optimize staff resources. IntelyCare is revolutionizing the antiquated healthcare staffing market, filling nursing shifts at three times the industry average and giving post-acute facilities the tools to predict and manage staffing needs. The company’s engaging mobile app allows nursing professionals access to flexible, on-demand work opportunities, reducing burnout and increasing productivity.