Q&A with Brandon Atkinson, CEO & President, CareRev

RamaOnHealthcare October 27, 2024

Helping healthcare facilities build a more resilient, flexible workforce

Today, RamaOnHealthcare talks with Brandon Atkinson, CEO & President, CareRev.

Brandon Atkinson, CEO & President, CareRev

RamaOnHealthcare (ROH): CareRev just launched a new workforce management solution called Internal Resource Pool Plus (IRP+). What is IRP+, and how does it differ from traditional shift management solutions?

Brandon Atkinson (BA): First, let’s talk about the traditional approaches to shift management. It may be hard to believe, considering how so much of healthcare has been digitized over the past decade or more, but most health systems today are still relying on the same manual, archaic processes for shift management that they’ve leaned on for years. In most healthcare facilities, a nurse manager or scheduler will use spreadsheets, phone calls, texts, or even pen and paper to assign shifts. It’s incredibly time-consuming and inefficient. And what happens when a staff nurse needs to call out? Schedulers have to either run down the list of available nurses to call in a favor, or they’re forced to rely on costly third-party staffing agencies. These are antiquated scheduling methods that not only create administrative burdens for staff nurses, but are a silent contributor to burnout. CareRev’s IRP+ is designed to give nurses the tools they need to set their own schedule, earn more, and live their lives on their terms. As a result, from the health system standpoint, they fill more shifts faster, decrease nurse burnout and as a result, retain them longer. Most importantly, that leads to better patient care. Health systems are also saving more money in maximizing their internal resources. However, they like knowing they have the option to leverage the CareRev marketplace if there’s not enough full-time staff to fill the necessary shifts.

We named this solution IRP+ intentionally. With IRP+ – as opposed to traditional Internal Resource Pool (IRP) solutions – the healthcare system is not just leveraging their internal resource pool; it’s also plus their full-time and part-time, as well as the CareRev marketplace. Anywhere and anytime health systems need to flex up and flex down their staff and shifts, they can use IRP+ and avoid expensive alternatives like overtime.

ROH: What role does staffing flexibility play in addressing the challenges brought on by the current nursing shortage?

BA: More than anything else, nurses want flexibility. And, in the current workforce environment, it’s critical for health systems to provide it. The nursing shortage has made it exceptionally difficult for most health systems to make sure every floor in every facility is adequately staffed, which in turn fuels nurse burnout and high nurse turnover. It’s a vicious cycle. All of our health system partners are focused on building resilience within their workforce, and the primary way they’re doing that is by ingraining flexibility into their workforce strategies – whether that’s through bolstering their staff with per diem nurses, building out internal float pools, or innovating around scheduling. All of these strategies are levers to help give nurses more flexibility and more control over balancing work and their personal lives. With IRP+, for example, nurses are able to choose shifts that best fit their availability. Maybe they need to schedule around their kids’ sports schedule or their parents’ doctors appointments. It’s this level of flexibility that’s going to reduce burnout and increase job satisfaction – and, ultimately, lead to better patient outcomes and higher quality care.

ROH: How does CareRev’s IRP+ support nurses by providing the independence and flexibility they seek while simultaneously helping health systems meet their staffing needs?

BA: That’s a good question. Too often, our industry thinks about the relationship between nurses and hospitals as a tug-of-war, where one group needs to give up ground to fulfill the needs of the other. I don’t agree with that, and once both nurses and health systems become aware of the full scope of resources that are available to them, they begin to see the relationship differently, too. The reality is, the current nursing shortage is the result of – among other things – a legacy of rigidity in the way nursing talent is sourced and leveraged. Hospitals have staff nurses, they have external, longer-term staffing resources through third party agencies, and they have pools of per diem talent that has historically been more difficult to build and deploy. CareRev helps healthcare facilities engage the third and optimize their strategies for deploying the first two. With IRP+, nurses can self-schedule shifts directly through our platform, giving them autonomy over their shifts and providing healthcare facilities with a clear view into their resource requirements. By prioritizing internal staff for open shifts before reaching out to their on-demand per diem pool, facilities can ensure that staff nurses have first dibs on shifts, further supporting their independence and choice.

CareRev created a category around a flexible, on-demand workforce platform pre-Covid and strengthened it during Covid and beyond. We’ve built an infinitely scalable marketplace. We’ve always been focused on flexibility; but for the first time, facilities can use our extensible technology out-of-the-box.

We are truly empowering nurses and changing the mindset of CNOs and CROs that they don’t need better – more more – recruiters and schedulers. They just need CareRev’s technology.

And it’s working. We surveyed our nurses and 92% agreed with the statement that “CareRev gives me what I need to set my own schedule, earn more and live life on my terms.” How many health system employee satisfaction surveys show those kinds of results for their employees?

ROH: Bergen New Bridge Medical Center has been using CareRev’s platform for a while now. What has been the impact on their staffing and overall operations?

BA: Bergen New Bridge Medical Center has been a true innovation partner with us and the results have been remarkable. Since 2022, they’ve filled over 4,700 shifts through CareRev. On-demand per diem nurses have clocked nearly 50,000 hours at Bergen using our platform. Bergen is also integrating IRP+, meaning the facility can now streamline their staffing processes even further. Shifts can be automatically shared with their full-time, part-time and per-diem employees, their internal float pool, and if they like, our marketplace. The process is fast and efficient and has reduced their reliance on expensive external agency staff. This will not only help Bergen lower labor costs, but help them maintain high standards of patient care by utilizing familiar, internal staff first. The current market has been forcing health systems to get really innovative with their workforce strategies. Bergen is definitely a standout. One day, we’re going to look back on the 2020s and see them as a pioneer in workforce innovation.

ROH: The use of technology to help hospitals fill shifts is becoming a common practice, or at least become much more prevalent. How does CareRev ensure that the IRP+ platform aligns with hospital policies and safety standards?

BA: I’m glad you asked. This is important. There’s a common refrain in healthcare: “Once you’ve seen one hospital, you’ve seen one hospital.” No two hospitals, even within the same health system, are going to have the exact same needs and processes. We take a lot of pride in our white-glove approach to working with our partners. CareRev’s platform is designed to be customized to every facility’s distinct staffing and safety policies. When posting shifts, staffing coordinators can set specific requirements and preferences, ensuring that the right healthcare professionals are matched to each role. For instance, Bergen New Bridge doesn’t want nurses to claim a shift back-to-back without an eight-hour break in-between to ensure nurses are well-rested and performing at the top of their license. Also, from Bergen’s hospital policy standpoint, if overtime is offered to one person, it needs to be offered to all. It’s equal opportunity to access overtime within their existing safety policies.

ROH: The nursing shortage isn’t expected to resolve any time soon. Looking ahead, how do you see CareRev and IRP+ evolving to further address the needs of healthcare facilities and nurses?

BA: From a macro level, in this challenging climate for health systems and nurses, which will only become more challenging, we’ve found that empowering facilities to build an on-demand and flexible workforce also empowers nurses to work how they want and when they want. With Bergen prioritizing nurse well-being, their nurses will thrive and they will retain that staff. That is a competitive advantage for Bergen as they won’t feel the shortage as acutely as other health systems who are not using IRP+.

Like any technology, we’re committed to continuously improving IRP+ based on feedback from our partners and the evolving needs of the healthcare industry. Our goal is to expand the capabilities and features within the platform to include predictive staffing insights that enable facilities to better anticipate their staffing needs – and to anticipate them more accurately. We’re also exploring ways to offer more specialized shift-matching options for specific departments within healthcare facilities. We believe CareRev will play a significant role in helping healthcare facilities build a more resilient, flexible workforce that can adapt to any challenges the future might bring.

About Brandon Atkinson

Brandon Atkinson has 20+ years of deep expertise in scaling high-growth, global, enterprise technology companies from early-stage to IPO-ready. He is currently the CEO of CareRev, the on-demand workforce platform for acute care nursing. Most recently, Atkinson was the COO of Cleerly Health, where he helped raise $223M and build the team and operations that brought its groundbreaking heart attack prevention technology to market. Prior to that, he was the COO at Monetate, which was acquired by Vista Equity Partners’ Kibo Commerce. He joined Roivant Sciences, a biopharma company, shortly after it closed a $1.1 billion round from Softbank to help scale their operations. Atkinson was also an early employee at AppNexus and Opsware, both of which were acquired for $1.6 billion, where he filled a variety of leadership roles to support their global hypergrowth. He lives in the NYC area with his wife and two boys, and has a passion for ultra marathons. Atkinson holds a Bachelors with High Honors in History from Rutgers University, and a Masters in Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin.