Incredible Health Files for IPO: Revolutionizing Healthcare Hiring with 100% Nurse Retention and AI-Driven Matching

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Projections, 2019–2029, the nation’s registered nurse workforce is projected to grow from 3 million in 2019 to 3.3 million in 2029, a 7% increase. By 2029, there will also be an annual average of 175,900 job openings for registered nurses. According to the Report on the U.S. Registered Nurse Workforce, shortages of registered nurses are expected to occur nationwide between 2016 and 2030.

The healthcare industry has become the largest labor market in the United States, yet it also faces the most severe labor shortage.

Seun Ross, Director of Nursing Practice and Work Environment at the American Nurses Association, stated in a previous interview that the United States is experiencing a large-scale nursing shortage. Experienced nurses are retiring at an accelerated pace, while the number of nursing graduates available to fill these vacancies remains insufficient. In southern and western states such as Florida, Georgia, Texas, and California, the severe shortage of nurses has left state healthcare systems unable to meet growing demand for medical services, marking their most challenging period to date.

Research indicates that when nurses are overworked, medication error rates increase by 20%, leading to a 4% rise in patient mortality. Tragically, the suicide rate among nurses is also nearly twice the national average. Since the 1990s, traditional U.S. recruitment agencies have failed to innovate, yielding unsatisfactory results: the average time to hire a permanent nurse is 90 days, with protracted processes and low efficiency, resulting in severe nursing staff shortages in hospitals.

In this environment, the Incredible Health healthcare recruitment platform emerged as the fastest-growing premium nurse recruitment platform in the country.

Incredible Health is a healthcare recruitment platform based in San Francisco, California, founded in 2017 by Iman Abuzeid, M.D., and MIT alumnus Roman Portlock. The company pioneered a proprietary matching algorithm that accelerates hiring speed and enhances efficiency, significantly reducing costs for employers while helping nurses secure better-matched, longer-term positions.

Iman Abuzeid, CEO of Incredible Health, brings a background in product management at VC-backed startups and healthcare management consulting at McKinsey and Booz, and is passionate about life-improving healthcare technology.

He stated that nurses are the backbone of the healthcare industry and should have greater say in their careers. Since its inception, Incredible Health has been committed to revolutionizing the way nurses are hired, continuously innovating to ensure nurses find better and more fulfilling roles, while supporting healthcare institutions in rapidly identifying the nursing talent they need through technology.

By the end of 2019, Incredible Health’s services were limited to health systems in Texas and California. The company has since expanded its operations to 14 states across the U.S., while further strengthening its presence in Texas and California. Today, more than 350 hospitals nationwide—including Johns Hopkins Medicine, HCA Healthcare, Stanford Health Care, Kaiser Permanente, Providence St. Joseph Health, Jefferson Health, Houston Methodist, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center—have hired long-term care personnel through Incredible Health.

While there are numerous recruitment tools currently on the market, Incredible Health adopts a fundamentally different approach. The company flips the script by reversing the roles of hospitals and nurses. When a hospital sends an interview request to a qualified candidate, the platform automatically displays the hospital’s profile via SMS, email, and its mobile app. This ensures that the hospital’s distinctive features and advantages are clearly visible, becoming key factors in the candidate’s decision to accept the interview.

“We have transformed the traditional recruitment process by having hospitals and health systems apply to candidates, rather than nurses applying for jobs. Our algorithm provides a thoroughly vetted, customized list of qualified candidates, increasing hospitals’ hiring efficiency by 25-fold,” said Iman Abuzeid. “Meanwhile, the platform pre-screens nurses, with only 25% of applicants meeting the criteria, making it crucial to highlight the advantages of hospitals to these high-quality candidates.”

On average, it takes hospitals 90 days to recruit a permanent nurse. In contrast, Incredible Health leverages thousands of data points from nurses and hospitals, along with custom matching algorithms, to hire permanent professional nurses in 20 days or less. This streamlined approach significantly reduces the time and costs for both healthcare systems and nurses.

David Jones, Chief Human Resources Officer at Stanford Health Care and a long-term partner of Incredible Health, stated, “We need talent to deliver high-quality care. Due to the ongoing talent shortage, finding a qualified and experienced candidate often incurs unexpectedly high time costs. At Incredible Health, we consistently secure stable hires within three weeks.”

“Incredible Health has also improved the quality of life for nurses themselves. What particularly surprised us is that those who found jobs through our platform saw their average salaries increase by 17% and their commute times decrease by 15%,” said Iman Abuzeid.

Even before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, the United States was already facing a severe shortage of nursing personnel. Due to long working hours and challenging work environments, the nursing profession has consistently experienced high staff turnover rates.

The pandemic has exacerbated these issues. As infection rates and death tolls rose, nurses found themselves in highly complex and hazardous work environments, facing immense physical and psychological stress. A study of healthcare workers in New York during the peak of the U.S. outbreak last April revealed that nurses were among those reporting the highest levels of stress; 64% of nurses and senior physicians reported symptoms of acute stress, ranging from nightmares to intrusive thoughts about the virus. Loneliness and insomnia were also prevalent within this group, driven by fears of transmitting the virus to family and friends. The study noted that nurses experienced these stressors at higher rates because they spent more time providing direct patient care.

To help nurses cope with stress and burnout, Incredible Health has developed the Nurse Wellness Toolkit, which includes two products. The first is a free online community for nurses where they can post anonymously without worrying about their employers seeing the content. Community topics range from advice on transitioning between specialties to strategies for managing burnout, along with various casual conversations. The second is the Daily Nurse Journal, a free digital journaling platform. Nurses can use structured daily prompts to record their emotions, helping them manage stress more effectively. Nurse burnout was already a widespread issue before the pandemic; in a recent study, 54% of nurses reported experiencing symptoms of burnout. According to a study published in the Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, written reflection has a positive impact on how nurses handle stress, burnout, and trauma.

“As a nurse, having a trusted community to gain support and understanding is crucial, especially during the pandemic,” said Lea Zinyemba, Personal Talent Advocate at Incredible Health. “The pandemic has made nursing, an already stressful profession, even more challenging. Communities like Incredible Health are essential in helping nurses plan their careers, access resources, and manage their daily work.”

When nurses seek new positions, the platform not only fully automates matching and scheduling but also employs talent advocates like Lea Zinyemba to help plan careers, provide interview coaching, evaluate job options, and share resume tips. Currently, Incredible Health is the only platform equipped with this one-on-one support mechanism.

Iman Abuzeid, CEO and founder of the company, stated, “Creating a community for nurses at every stage of their careers—from securing permanent positions to providing support and resources during challenging times—reflects our commitment to the vision of enabling healthcare professionals to live better lives. We hope that nurses can use this safe space to reflect and recharge, combating stress and burnout, thereby helping them maintain good mental health both during and after the pandemic.”

In 2019, Incredible Health completed a $15 million Series A financing round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from NFX, Obvious Ventures, Precursor Ventures, and Gingerbread Capital. Leveraging this funding, the company accelerated the nationwide expansion of its platform in China and initiated platform upgrades and updates.

This update shortens the recruitment process to 12 days, mitigates talent turnover costs, and saves hospital partners an average of at least $2 million annually in nurse turnover, overtime, and human resources expenses. Enhancements include: an improved custom matching algorithm, automated interview scheduling, remote interviews, in-app chat, data analytics and reporting, and enhanced nurse profiles featuring professional skills and references.

Since completing its Series A financing, the company has seen a 1,000% increase in revenue, a 500% increase in nursing positions, and a 100% nurse retention rate. The number of nurses on the platform has grown by more than 800%, with thousands of nurses securing permanent positions.

Meanwhile, the retention rate for nurses hired through Incredible Health is 15% higher than that for nurses hired through traditional channels. On average, Incredible Health saves each partner hospital at least $2 million annually in overtime expenses and human resources costs.

Jeff Jordan, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and Board Member of Incredible Health, stated: “Incredible Health has excelled in both aspects of building its marketplace. Given the national focus on healthcare infrastructure and the shortage of medical talent, the company’s platform is rapidly becoming the default choice for all hospitals seeking to hire permanent nurses.”

Iman Abuzeid stated, “Incredible Health has done more than any other platform to address the hospital staffing demands caused by the pandemic. Amid this healthcare crisis, rapidly hiring qualified permanent nurses is not merely a ‘nice-to-have,’ but a critical factor in ensuring patient well-being and institutional financial health. Hospitals have been severely impacted by declining revenues over the past few months, and our platform’s feature updates will help healthcare institutions avoid high costs as much as possible, thereby safeguarding both patient well-being and hospitals’ financial stability.”

On August 14, 2020, CB Insights, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent think tanks, released the 2020 Digital Health 150 list, selecting the 150 most promising digital health companies worldwide. Incredible Health’s inclusion on this list signifies strong recognition from leading global research institutions of the company’s innovation and future growth potential in the healthcare sector.

This annual list spans 12 categories, ranging from management automation and digitalization, virtual care delivery, to drug discovery and specialty care. Incredible Health is the only recruitment platform on the list.

Iman Abuzeid said, “We are proud to be recognized as one of the world’s most promising private digital health companies, and we will continue to innovate to support nurses at every stage of their careers.”