Tom Barnett, Chief Digital Officer of Baptist Memorial Health Care

Digital Health

Incredible Health Closes $80M Series B

Nurse staffing platform Incredible Health landed $80M in Series B funding as it looks to flip the script on the healthcare worker shortage by having hospitals apply for nurses, rather than the other way around.

The round brings Incredible Health’s total funding to $97M and vaults it into the unicorn club with a $1.65B valuation.

Incredible Health’s hiring platform uses machine learning algorithms to match candidates to open nursing positions at health systems, focusing on permanent placements as opposed to temporary ones.

• The platform first gathers information on each nurse’s licenses and certifications, then asks candidates about their goals, working preferences, and any skills they wish to gain.

• This allows provider organizations to streamline hiring with highly curated lists of best-fitting candidates, which Incredible Health reports has reduced its average hiring time to 14 days (vs. an industry average of 82 days).

The fresh funding is earmarked to scale the platform from 35 states to 90% of the US nurse workforce while adding more support for users (skill growth, educational scholarships, cross-training) to help attract talent away from increasingly well-financed competition.

Here’s a snapshot of activity in the space within just the last year:

• June 2022 – Nomad Health raised $105M in growth financing ($218M total funding)
• April 2022 – Clipboard Health raised an $80M Series C ($94M total funding)
• April 2022 – IntelyCare raised a $115M Series C ($171M total funding)
• December 2021 – connectRN raised a $76M venture round ($96M total funding)
• November 2021 – Trusted Health raised a $149M Series C ($175M total funding)

The Takeaway
Incredible Health’s funding arrives at a critical time, with 100k registered nurses leaving the workforce in 2021 alone. This has created a huge demand for solutions that can help address the problem, but it’s also led to a crowded competitive landscape that makes differentiated features like Incredible Health’s hospital-to-nurse application structure a necessity.

Putting the Hyperfine Swoop to Use

The Hyperfine Swoop Portable MR’s accessibility advantages can translate to significant clinical and operational value, particularly for hospital emergency and intensive care departments. See how bringing MRI to the point-of-care can impact hospitals’ quality of care and revenue potential.

connectRN and StoryCorps Share Nurses’ Stories

connectRN partnered with StoryCorps to celebrate and honor the voices of the nursing community. Hear their powerful stories.

The Wire

• Akili’s Public Debut: Over half a year after Akili Interactive announced plans to go public via a SPAC merger, the therapeutic video game developer has begun trading on the Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol “AKLI.” The listing follows a successful vote from shareholders of Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp I, one of several SPACs helmed by high profile venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, netting the company $163M to support the launch of its FDA-cleared EndeavorRx video game treatment for children with ADHD.

• Health Plan Challenges: HealthEdge’s Voice of the Market Survey of 300 health plan execs found that the top two challenges currently faced by payors are managing costs (46%) and driving operational efficiencies (41%), a dramatic jump from their fourth and fifth positions last year. Although inflation typically impacts healthcare costs later than other sectors due to the multi-year nature of payor-provider contracts, the survey indicates that more health plans are beginning to prioritize the issue by making significant investments in innovation (53%) and improving their engagement strategies (52%).

• UCHealth Augmented Reality Dogs: Colorado-based UCHealth might just have the feel-good healthcare story of the week as it rolls out new augmented reality app features that allow patients in its waiting rooms to play with virtual dogs before their appointments. Nicole Caputo, UCHealth’s senior director of experience and innovation, told HealthcareITNews that the health system is building a rich content library that brings joy to the patient experience, because if a patient gets too overwhelmed, “we are not doing our job.”

• Same-Day Feedback: A BMC-published survey of 185 women who attended a mammography found that sharing the results during the same appointment improved the screening experience for 48% of the women. Interestingly, 47% reported no significant difference, while 5% reported that the process made their experience worse (potentially due to long wait times for results).

• Connected BP Monitors: Despite the rapid rise in smartphone-linked blood pressure monitors, a JAMA Internal Medicine study found that connected devices aren’t superior to traditional BP cuffs at treating hypertension or improving patient satisfaction. The study of 2.1k patients revealed that the change in systolic blood pressure from baseline to six months was almost identical in users of smartphone-linked BP monitors compared to traditional cuffs (10.8mm Hg vs. 10.6 mm Hg), and there was equally little difference in their willingness to recommend the device to a friend (70% vs. 69%).

• Nuance & Covera’s Quality Collaboration: Nuance and Covera Health announced the launch of their Quality Care Collaborative program, combining Covera’s clinical intelligence platform and Nuance’s Precision Imaging Network. The alliance will use Covera’s quality assessment capabilities and Nuance’s analytics and infrastructure to give payors, providers, and employers a foundation for their radiology quality improvement initiatives and value-based care efforts.

• Tablets Unused by Veterans: The VA’s Video Connect program recently distributed 41k iPads to veterans to use for telehealth appointments without effectively tracking device issuance, use, or returns. As you might expect, an audit report by the OIG found that 51% of the iPads were never used for their intended purpose, although they have been successful in racking up $258 in unlimited cellular data costs per device each year ($10.6M annually).

• Caregility + Eko: Telehealth solution provider Caregility is partnering with Eko to enable physicians to perform high-quality auscultation (heart, lung, and other body sounds) on patients during virtual physical exams. Eko’s smart stethoscopes now seamlessly integrate with Caregility’s iConsult application, giving users access to a live-stream of stethoscope sounds with real-time phonocardiogram and electrocardiogram waveform visualization.

• CareHarmony Raises $15M: Virtual care coordination startup CareHarmony secured $15M in Series A funding (total funding now $17M) to further development on its platform that uses AI to analyze patient data and provide personalized care plan recommendations. CareHarmony partners with hospitals to enable value-based care through programs such as the Medicare Shared Savings Program, which are mandating high-revenue hospitals to adopt downside risk on increasingly shorter timelines.

• Virtual Visit Satisfaction: A Deloitte survey of 2k Americans found that 49% of respondents participated in at least one virtual visit in the past year, with 92% saying they’re very or somewhat satisfied with virtual care (up from 82% in 2021). Respondents attributed the improved satisfaction to virtual care benefits such as convenience and reduced risk of COVID exposure, but continued to report challenges with lack of human connection and difficulty of collecting vitals.

What’s Patient Engagement to a PAC Manager?

Nuance’s patient engagement guide for CEOs shares the challenges faced by Patient Access Center Managers and explores how equipping them with the right solutions can help give every patient simple access to care.