ShiftMed – a mobile platform that acts as a conduit between health care providers and workers – announced Monday that it has raised $200 million in funding.
The significant funding amount comes less than two years after it raised $45 million in 2021.
“There is an ongoing demand for workforce solutions, especially in health care,” ShiftMed CEO Todd Walrath, told Home Health Care News in an email. “We’ve had a steadily increasing gap between demand and supply for credentialed workers for 10 years now and it will continue to worsen. This funding round came on the heels of investors and stakeholders realizing that the fire that exists within health care is in labor and staffing.”
The funding was led by Panoramic Ventures with participation from Blue Heron Capital and Audacious Capital.
It will be used to expand ShiftMed’s national footprint across all segments of the health care market while diversifying and growing its acute, health system and in-home service lines.
Since launching, the McLean, Virginia-based ShiftMed has seen 8-times growth in just two years. Today, it has more than 350,000 health care workers in its staffing system in more than 110 markets across the U.S.
The company boasts more than 1,500 partners, which include home-based care agencies, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), hospitals and assisted living providers.
ShiftMed directly hires home-based care workers — and other health care workers – and contracts with health care providers across the continuum to fill their needs.
Home-based care workers are able to access the platform to pick up any shifts that are convenient for them. On the other side, health care facilities utilize the technology to increase their access to qualified providers to fill open shifts without using expensive travel nurses or overtime work, Walrath said.
The use of travel nurses and other remote-friendly caregivers became a popular way to fill in workforce gaps during the pandemic. However, that method is expensive for health plans and providers.
The travel nurse sector has grown from an $8 billion industry in 2020 to more than $13 billion in 2022, according to ShiftMed.
Walrath said in the statement that ShiftMed is attempting to change the labor framework for providers and health systems by allowing them to rely less on travel nurses by giving them control, predictability, and, hopefully, an avenue to lower costs and increase retention.
The company can reduce operating costs by 30-40% compared to travel staffing alternatives, it said.
In September, ShiftMed partnered with Uber’s (NYSE: UBER) health care arm, Uber Health, to allow ShiftMed workers the ability to access on-demand rides with the ridesharing platform.
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