Vitalize has raised a $31 million Series A to expand software meant to coordinate one of a hospital’s most expensive and stubbornly manual jobs: deciding which clinicians should work where and when.
Oak HC/FT led the round. Fierce Healthcare reported that Norwest Ventures, .406 Ventures, Constellation Ventures, Y Combinator and MemorialCare Innovation Fund also participated. The company said it will use the money to expand its growth and deployment teams and continue developing models for patient-throughput optimization.
Turning schedules into an operating system
Hospital staffing offices often balance patient demand, employee availability, credentials, union rules and overtime costs across separate spreadsheets, phone calls and group texts. Vitalize’s software is designed to combine those inputs, forecast demand and recommend how to fill scheduling gaps.
The company describes the product as an “air traffic control” layer for hospital operations. According to Vitalize’s account of the system, it models staffing supply, builds schedules and manages day-to-day changes while connecting with existing electronic health record, payroll and timekeeping systems. Managers remain responsible for decisions, while the software is intended to give them a shared view of staffing and capacity.
Vitalize told Fierce Healthcare it works with more than 15 health systems under multiyear enterprise contracts. The reported customer list includes MemorialCare, LifeBridge Health, Allina Health, Northwestern Medicine, Rochester Regional Health and St. Luke’s Health.
Customers report lower premium labor costs
The clearest evidence offered so far comes from Vitalize customers. St. Luke’s Health CIO David Pereles said the system recorded a 54% reduction in overtime and agency labor spending within 12 weeks of deployment. Rochester Regional Health chief nurse executive Dan Ireland said clinical leaders there spent 50% less time on manual staffing and scheduling. MedCity News reported both results, but they are customer-reported figures rather than results from an independent study.
Vitalize says its broader goal is to connect workforce decisions with patient flow. A bed is not usable capacity without qualified staff, and a staffing plan can quickly become obsolete when admissions, transfers and discharges change. The company plans to use its models to recommend both staff allocation and patient placement, moving beyond scheduling into capacity management.
