Nursing shortages are the #1 problem for health systems. Over the last 3 years, labor spend has increased > 260% but revenues aren’t keeping up, and current staffing and scheduling processes are broken and antiquated. Nursing leaders are spending 50% of their time on manual scheduling tasks, while staffing decisions typically come down to a combination of phone-tag and guesswork. The average nurse gets called in last minute via texts or calls, and hospitals must resort to bonus pay just to staff to patient demand. Vitalize Care enables health systems to optimize their labor resources. Our software helps health systems proactively fill staffing gaps by automating outreach to the right nurse at the right time while optimizing for cost. We project saving our early pilot hospitals > $2M in labor costs annually, while saving their nurse managers nearly 60 hours/month by automating manual scheduling tasks.
I'm an MD/PhD student turned founder of Vitalize, where we work with healthcare employers to improve the mental health + productivity of their staff. Prior to Vitalize, I co-founded two behavioral health nonprofits and co-led digital health strategy initiatives for the US Surgeon General and IBM. Originally got interested in healthcare through informatics research, where my most recent work was funded by the Gates Foundation. Love chatting about all things hiking and coffee!
Co-Founder & CTO of Vitalize Care. Before Vitalize, Nikhil was the first engineer at Vincere Health, a digital health startup backed by United Healthcare, and built AI/ML models for Eli Lilly. He recently dropped out of the Data Science MS program at Columbia University.
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Vitalize Care, where we work with healthcare employers to improve the mental health of their staff. Prior to Vitalize, I co-founded a revenue-generating education nonprofit, and also conducted clinical, basic science, and health services research, co-authoring over 20 peer-reviewed publications. Previously led business development for seed-stage pediatric healthtech startup, and was also a fellow with .406 Ventures.
We’ve all seen recent headlines of nursing strikes, clinicians committing suicide or leaving the profession, and more. Over 60% of healthcare professionals are suffering from moral injury and burnout. This is costing our healthcare system billions of dollars, leading to staffing shortages in the millions, and sacrificing our ability to deliver high quality patient care. During the pandemic, the founders volunteered thousands of hours at hospitals, listened to the stories of those on the frontlines, and observed how current solutions were broken. Prior to Vitalize, they published the largest study on PTSD among clinicians during COVID and worked with the US Surgeon General on clinician mental health initiatives.