Scouting Report-Clipboard Health: Reducing Nursing Burnout and Filling Provider Vacancies Instantly

The Driver:

Clipboard Health recently raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Caffeinated Capital, Initialized Capital, Michael Seibel of Y Combinator; Tony Xu, co-founder of DoorDash; and Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch. This latest funding round brings the total funds raised to more than $90 million. Clipboard is an app-based marketplace company whose goal is to serve as a solution to the labor shortage at healthcare facilities around the country. Their marketplace provides nurses and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) the opportunity to find work wherever they go through their application. This platform is as much for hospitals and nursing homes as it is for healthcare workers. Clipboard Health will be using the recently earned funding to hire new workers in all areas, including sales and marketing, and to double the size of its engineering team.

Key Takeaways:

• Since March 2020, the number of people working at U.S. hospitals declined by more than 2%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while emergency department wait times increased.

• A recent analysis of workforce data by Premier found that staffing shortages cost hospitals $24 billion during the pandemic.

• 3 in 10 healthcare workers considered leaving their profession and 6 of 10 remarked that pandemic-related stress hurt their mental health according to a 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation study.

• Clipboard Health’s application allows for healthcare workers to find flexible shifts and for hospitals to find skilled healthcare workers.

The Story:

Founder and CEO, Wei Deng, started Clipboard Health in 2016 with a mission to revolutionize the market for healthcare talent by leading the way in reliability, affordability, and ease of use for facilities and healthcare professionals. For years, the healthcare profession faced a severe shortage of workers leading to facilities having to outsource their employees. The shortage of staff was made more apparent during the Pandemic when many hospitals were at full capacity and the number of people working in hospitals declined by over 2% in part due to COVID illnesses and disputes over safety protocols. Clipboard Health is an ideal solution to provide those facilities the ability to find qualified workers in less time. This easy-to-use application is organized so that healthcare facilities can post available shifts and qualified healthcare workers can find and register for those shifts. According to TechCrunch, “Clipboard, is an online marketplace that pairs nurses, nursing assistants and other healthcare professionals with facilities in need of staffing. Using the platform, facilities can post shifts they need to fill and healthcare workers can book these shifts, managing their schedules via Clipboard’s mobile app.” Clipboard is easy to access and like any smartphone app, providers and healthcare workers can find this application in the app store for Apple devices and the play store for Google devices.

The Differentiators:

Clipboard differs from similar companies like Trusted health which created a platform for nurses to find contract positions and ShiftMed which allows healthcare workers to find available shifts through the app with next-day pay. Clipboard is unique in that it does not require healthcare workers to apply for a contract or long-term position at a particular facility. The healthcare worker can choose shifts anywhere in their area using only their mobile device. The feature of Clipboard that particularly stands out is the instant pay after the shift ends. Healthcare workers are typically paid weekly, bi-weekly, or the next day when working as employees or contractors, however, Clipboard allows healthcare workers to get paid much faster than traditional methods. In addition, Clipboard prides itself on providing flexibility to its consumers to reduce worker burnout and creating a healthcare marketplace of talented workers for facilities.

The Big Picture:

Clipboard Health’s solution of an online marketplace for healthcare providers has the potential to become a model for helping alleviate the workforce shortage in healthcare by making it easier to advertise and fill available positions. Clipboard’s app approach can benefit hospitals, nursing homes, nurses, CNAs as well as the patients they serve. The company’s solution allows hospitals and nursing homes to be more efficient in recruiting and filling vacant positions by increasing access to talented healthcare professionals quickly and easily. Providing nurses and CNAs with access to numerous opportunities in their local geographic area and on their own time can help reduce stress on the healthcare worker and benefit the patient by having caregivers who are engage, satisfied and rapidly rewarded financially for their efforts. In addition, as noted in numerous studies, less burnout and greater job satisfaction with their jobs translates into higher quality, more attentive care for patients. Over time this becomes a virtuous circle, the more providers that Clipboard works with, the more opportunity for the workers and the better results.

However, maintaining these levels of success and ensuring Clipboard’s solution is effective will likely mean the company will need to expand its network of providers andservices geographically and diversify the number and types of shifts offered. Moreover, one additional challenge Clipboard may face is the robust competition within healthcare for talent between providers, travel nursing companies and other types of contractors. For example, while Clipboards model is differentiated, there are several companies such as NurseDash, CareRev, NomadHealth, and ConnectRN that have similar models that could pose strong competition if Clipboard’s model does not further differentiate itself. For Clipboard to stay competitive, it may need to extend its list of service offerings to other healthcare professions such as medical assistants, physician assistants, and physicians themselves if it is to succeed long-term.

Clipboard Health, which matches health workers with facilities, raises $80M; Clipboard Health, an online hiring platform, snags $80M to expand into more cities; Healthcare staffing startup Clipboard Health raises $80M across two rounds and more digital health fundings