Nursing shortages had been an issue effectively earlier than our hospitals had been rocked by a pandemic. Two years in and overloaded programs have additional contributed to burnout, stress and different components plaguing the folks we depend on for our personal well-being. We’ve seen robotics utilized to simply about each different discipline of late, so why not nursing — a discipline that can require a million new faces to maintain up with demand within the U.S. alone?
Diligent has been main that particular cost for a while now. Late final yr, we spoke with Georgia Tech affiliate professor Andrea Thomaz, who co-founded the corporate in 2017 with Vivian Chu, to debate exactly how profound an impression the previous two years have had on the agency. She famous, partly:
It’s actually only a dramatic shift in labor markets throughout loads of totally different industries. It appears to be associated each to folks form of having an incredible resignation, the place persons are deciding that they wish to do various things. And lots of people shifting jobs. We’re seeing that each one throughout tech work, rather a lot in our business and healthcare. Lots of people are simply deciding to do one thing else. There have been already workforce challenges pre-pandemic, and now these are reaching disaster ranges.
Diligent timed its final funding spherical completely, scoring $10 million in March of 2020, proper earlier than many U.S. hospitals had been inundated. This week the robotics firm introduced that it’s tripling that quantity for a Collection N of “over” $30 million. Tiger International, which appears to have its striped paws in all issues robotic funding, led the spherical. Current traders True Ventures, DNX Enterprise, Ubiquity Ventures, E14 Fund, Subsequent Coast Ventures, Growth Capital and Gaingels joined in, together with new participant, Cedars-Sinai Well being Ventures.
“This new spherical of funding will assist us scale the corporate to satisfy the unimaginable demand for our healthcare service robotic,” Thomaz stated in a launch tied to at present’s information. Because of the assist of our traders and the Diligent group, we’re centered on increasing automated assist for scientific groups so nurses and clinicians can concentrate on duties that matter most, affected person care.”
Diligent says will probably be utilizing the funding to assist navigate some provide chain points because it continues to deploy its nurse helping bot, Moxie. This new spherical brings the startup’s funding to simply below $50 million.