Nomad Health clinched $105 million in new financing to expand its online healthcare jobs marketplace to new clinical specialties as the staffing crisis reaches a new high.
The startup is going beyond traveling nurses to include lab techs, physical therapists and ultrasound technicians.
Even before the pandemic, the healthcare industry faced a looming shortage of doctors and nurses. The U.S. is projected to have a massive shortage of physicians in primary and specialty care by 2034, according to new estimates. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians, with the largest disparities being in the area of specialty doctors.
A recent Mercer report also found that healthcare workers are retiring at a faster rate than anticipated, in part over burnout, while demand for them will increase over the next several years, according to a new report.
The COVID-19 pandemic and other stressors have exacerbated staffing issues in the industry.
With the strains of the pandemic, an aging population and high rates of burnout among American healthcare workers, the need for providers at facilities across the country has never been more acute, according to Nomad Health executives.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and accelerated the healthcare workforce crisis that has been a powerful undercurrent in healthcare for decades. This 21st-century scale problem direly needs a 21st-century solution," said CEO and co-founder Alexi Gharib Nazem, M.D.
“In the past year, Nomad has experienced tremendous growth in a category we pioneered, connecting temporary healthcare workers to hospitals and healthcare systems seamlessly through technology," Nazem said. "We have been working hard to think differently and to apply technology, sophisticated data science, and best business practices from across industries so that Nomad can more efficiently, effectively, and scalably serve clinicians of all types at health systems all across the country.”
The latest raise was co-led by Adams Street Partners and Icon Ventures. New equity investor HealthQuest Capital committed the largest sum and was joined by existing investors Polaris Partners, .406 Ventures, AlleyCorp and RRE Ventures along with new debt providers J.P. Morgan and Trinity Capital.
This brings Nomad’s total funding to over $200 million since its founding in 2015.
Since January 2021, Nomad clinicians have cared for millions of patients at more than 1,000 healthcare facilities across all 50 states, according to the company. The user base now includes more than 250,000 healthcare workers who have submitted nearly half a million job applications on the platform.
Nomad’s revenue has increased more than sevenfold, and the company is profitable, executives said.
In addition to the new financing and business expansion, Nomad announced the hiring of Maquel Shaw as chief marketing officer. A marketing veteran with over a decade of experience, Shaw comes from Overstock.com, where she most recently served as interim chief marketing officer.
Nomad also announced that Garheng Kong, M.D., Ph.D., will join the company’s board of directors.
Kong commented, “Nomad brings innovation and flexibility to solving the persistent healthcare talent shortage in the US. The company is uniquely positioned to leverage technology in a way that improves the user experience and generates insights to improve the recruiting and placement process and drives down costs. We’re excited to invest our capital and expertise into the company for its next stage of growth and scale.”
Nomad’s business is addressing and benefiting from an industrywide staffing shortage that has left hospitals and other care providers increasingly reliant on temporary and travel workers.
There is a new crop of startups that aim to help hospitals fill staffing gaps, including Trusted Health, which pulled in $149 million in funding last fall. Vivian Health recently raised $60 million in funding, and app-based marketplace Clipboard Health snagged $80 million in funding over two rounds, boosting its valuation to $1.3 billion.
Nurse staffing platform IntelyCare also hit "unicorn" status this year after a $115 million series C funding round.
Nomad’s platform allows clinicians to search, filter and apply to temporary local and travel positions.
Nurses and other clinicians who apply are hired on as W-2 employees rather than contract workers, allowing Nomad to offer benefits and licensing and certification reimbursement for certain jobs. For healthcare facilities posting open positions, Nomad says on its website that the platform delivers a 5% reduction in contract spend and a 95% assignment completion rate.