Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Krol mess Here
Speaker 1: and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Mike, you know there's a nursing shortage in the US,
Speaker 2: and our next guest may have a solution. A doctor
Speaker 2: Emon Abbozaid is co founder and chief executive officer of
Speaker 2: Incredible Health, and she's joining us now from where are you, Austin?
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the background. That doesn't look like Austin,
Speaker 2: not that I've really that's the.
Speaker 1: Nicest soum background I think we've seen today. It's pretty bank.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Austin. It's pretty green, all right.
Speaker 2: So what is what is Incredible Health and how are
Speaker 2: you going to solve the nursing crisis in the US.
Speaker 3: So, Incredible Health is the fastest growing venture backed healthcare
Speaker 3: career marketplace hospitals and health systems. They use our software
Speaker 3: to hire nurses and permanent roles in less than twenty days.
Speaker 3: Our mission is to help healthcare professionals live better lives
Speaker 3: and to help them find and do their best work.
Speaker 2: Oh and wait for it, Michael, they use artificial intelligence, so,
Speaker 2: which means if this were a publicly traded stock, could
Speaker 2: be like through the roof right, yeah, right, So well
Speaker 2: how does AI? What's what's the intersection of what you
Speaker 2: do and artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3: So this week we announce the implementation of generative AI
Speaker 3: across our platform, which we're really excited to do and
Speaker 3: we're also the first in our industry, right in our
Speaker 3: part of the industry to do that. There's these features
Speaker 3: really aim to just expand opportunities for nurses and to
Speaker 3: help further streamline the hiring process too. I will say
Speaker 3: that even beyond the generative AI, we do use machine learning,
Speaker 3: we also use algorithms to drive the value here. First
Speaker 3: first area I just want to share is just our
Speaker 3: resume wizard that allows nurses to instantly create resumes in
Speaker 3: a high quality resume and seconds in our mobile app.
Speaker 3: Thirty percent of nurses start the job search process without
Speaker 3: a resume for a variety of reasons, you know, including
Speaker 3: socioeconomic reasons like not having access to a computer laptop,
Speaker 3: or not simply not knowing what a high quality resume
Speaker 3: is what's needed. And so thousands of nurses have already
Speaker 3: used this, and so that's thousands of nurses that are
Speaker 3: no longer left behind in the job search process.
Speaker 1: And doctor how are you utilizing the AI? Are you,
Speaker 1: you know, is it a chat GPT thing or using
Speaker 1: one of these big tech products that's already available. Did
Speaker 1: you develop your own? How are you accomplishing this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have a fantastic product and engineering team
Speaker 3: and they're using a GPT technology from open Ai specifically.
Speaker 3: Another feature I wanted to mention is just our customized
Speaker 3: health system outreach to nurses. So this is this is
Speaker 3: an example of a feature where that health systems can
Speaker 3: use to send highly customized messaging to nurses. It highlights
Speaker 3: you know, hospital perks and benefits and ultimately helps hospitals
Speaker 3: really differentiate themselves from the competition. And since we implemented that,
Speaker 3: the interview requests accepted from nurses has gone off by
Speaker 3: twenty percent, So.
Speaker 2: Why limit this just to nurses and everybody use it.
Speaker 3: So the nursing is one of the is the top
Speaker 3: shortage in healthcare when it comes to just labor shortages,
Speaker 3: it's also one of the top shortages in the country,
Speaker 3: and it's definitely one of the you know, top areas
Speaker 3: that are the health systems that we work with care
Speaker 3: about the most. So we're very focused on nurses and
Speaker 3: hospitals right now in the US, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: we have plans to expand beyond nurses and beyond hospitals
Speaker 3: before now that's for now, that's our.
Speaker 1: Focus radio radio people. Yeah, they're gonna the chat cheep
Speaker 1: PT is gonna you know.
Speaker 2: The funny thing is is this, like in my career,
Speaker 2: I've been doing this, like, oh my god, forty years.
Speaker 2: I have never once had to give anybody a resume.
Speaker 1: Really, I don't know. They hear your voice, John, and
Speaker 1: then it must be they hear that Barry White voice
Speaker 1: and they're they're instantly so. But doctor, I'd like to
Speaker 1: step back just a little bit and talk about this
Speaker 1: nursing shortage. What caused that? Is it a remnant of
Speaker 1: the pandemic where you know a lot of nurses sort
Speaker 1: of had to step back from their career. What's going
Speaker 1: on that's driving this big shortage of nurses in your opinion?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, Look, it's a long term trend that's been
Speaker 3: going on for ten years and it's projected to continue
Speaker 3: for many decades to come. What's happening is that our
Speaker 3: demand from patients and from Americans on the healthcare system
Speaker 3: continues to increase because our population is aging, but we
Speaker 3: as a country have not done a great job of
Speaker 3: increasing the number of healthcare workers to meet that growing demand,
Speaker 3: and so the shortage is increasingly becoming tougher and tougher. Now. COVID,
Speaker 3: of course, was a demand shock, but even after COVID,
Speaker 3: even now there's still a shortage. I think you all
Speaker 3: mentioned the Jobs report. When you look at the detail
Speaker 3: in there, the biggest increase in job gains in the
Speaker 3: US is in healthcare. So this does continue, and despite
Speaker 3: the job growth, we still don't have enough healthcare workers
Speaker 3: to fill those roles.
Speaker 2: How many hospitals are using your stuff right now to
Speaker 2: end your customer base?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we work with over seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: hospitals across the country, including large health systems like Age
Speaker 3: and Kaiser, Permanente, large regional systems like Baylor, Scott and White,
Speaker 3: and many academic medical centers too, like Johns, Hopkins and
Speaker 3: Cedar Sinai. We also work with over eight hundred thousand nurses,
Speaker 3: so one in four nurses in the US uses incredible
Speaker 3: health to manage their careers.
Speaker 1: And I assume to the nurses pay or is it
Speaker 1: the hospital's paying, and the nurses get it for free.
Speaker 1: What are the economics of the Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent free for nurses. They can use all
Speaker 3: our tools, all our features, you know, even beyond finding
Speaker 3: a job. We have continuing education and a community for
Speaker 3: them to ask for advice and salary estimators and so on.
Speaker 3: And it's the hospitals that pay.
Speaker 2: I'm curious how you started the business and the different
Speaker 2: funding rounds you had to go through. How easy or
Speaker 2: difficult was that? And walk me through the steps that
Speaker 2: brought you into an existence.
Speaker 3: Sure, we founded the company six years ago. We've raised
Speaker 3: almost one hundred million dollars for the company, and the
Speaker 3: company today is valued at one point sixty five billion.
Speaker 3: I myself, I'm an MD by background, I've been in healthcare.
Speaker 3: I've been in technology for the last ten years of
Speaker 3: my career. And ultimately myself and my co founder, my
Speaker 3: CTO Rome Portlock, who's a brilliant software engineer from MIT.
Speaker 3: You know, we really we knew that there was There
Speaker 3: were constant complaints from members of our family. Actually, so
Speaker 3: doctors in my family were often complaining about understaffing nurses,
Speaker 3: and Rome's family were saying, hey, I'm experienced I'm qualified,
Speaker 3: I apply to ten places I don't even hear back.
Speaker 3: We started to really dig into it. We realized the tools,
Speaker 3: the processes of technology in healthcare hiring, A lot of
Speaker 3: it's not really changed in over twenty years. It's primarily
Speaker 3: job bars. You know, post a job and hope it
Speaker 3: all works out. But that's really tough and that's not
Speaker 3: sufficient a in an industry that has major labor shortages.
Speaker 2: Do you have additional funding rounds coming up and the
Speaker 2: expansion You sort of touched on that before, But what's next?
Speaker 3: So what's next for us and just looking at twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four is continuing to invest in our product roadmap,
Speaker 3: more extensive use of generative AI as well, to continue
Speaker 3: to expand opportunities for healthcare workers, for nurses, and to
Speaker 3: make and to streamline the hiring process. We want to
Speaker 3: make it more and more personalized, more and more automated,
Speaker 3: just make it easier for everyone to access fantastic opportunities.
Speaker 1: And I always wonder with a venture capital based company,
Speaker 1: h doctor sort of the long term ambitions are we
Speaker 1: perhaps going to see you ringing that stock market bell
Speaker 1: on I p O day someday or any any into
Speaker 1: what's to come as far as the next phase for
Speaker 1: Incredible Health.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, our vision and our mission is to help
Speaker 3: healthcare professionals lead better lives and help them find and
Speaker 3: do their best work. So, and this is a very
Speaker 3: ambitious company. Our goal ultimately is to one day go public.
Speaker 3: But you know, a lot of work to do between
Speaker 3: now and then.
Speaker 2: All right, let's leave it there. I mean anything else
Speaker 2: to add? I think you've covered it all.
Speaker 3: Doctor, all right, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: That was fantastic, Doctor Iman Abuse, the co founder, chief
Speaker 2: executive officer of Incredible Health. Mike, you know we all
Speaker 2: have failures and shortcomings.
Speaker 1: Speak for yourself.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, I was going to include
Speaker 2: you in that list. By the way, our next guest
Speaker 2: has turned her failures and shortcomings into something of a
Speaker 2: science project. Amy Edmondson is author of The Right Kind
Speaker 2: of Wrong, The Science of Failing Well. I think we
Speaker 2: have to read this book because what it won the
Speaker 2: Business Book of the Year for the FT I am
Speaker 2: told that's pretty impressive. Hey, Amy, thanks for being on
Speaker 2: the program. What was your science project?
Speaker 4: My whole life has been the science project, I guess,
Speaker 4: but indeed, failure is a central thread that runs through it.
Speaker 2: And you know, we're all told in school there are
Speaker 2: no dumb questions and that we advance and learn from
Speaker 2: our mistakes. But do we really well.
Speaker 4: Yes, we really do, although we don't do it naturally.
Speaker 4: We need to be We need to learn the right
Speaker 4: mindsets and skill to actually learn from failures. I do
Speaker 4: make a distinction between failures and mistakes. Mistakes are by definition,
Speaker 4: deviations from known best practices or protocols or recipes, whereas
Speaker 4: failures can in fact be in new territory where there
Speaker 4: was no recipe and amy.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated with the concept of studying a topic like
Speaker 1: failure from an academic sort of scientific approach. Could you
Speaker 1: could you walk us through how you did that? You know?
Speaker 1: Did you did you start with the kids who flunk
Speaker 1: your class and do brain scans on them? I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: but how did you? How did you approach this? Actually?
Speaker 4: I mean let me, let me be be more accurate.
Speaker 4: I don't study failure. I study organizations, and in organizations
Speaker 4: there are many failures. So I am fundamentally a management researcher,
Speaker 4: and one of my core passions is management decisions. And
Speaker 4: management actions that lead to preventable failures and even worse
Speaker 4: at times, that inhibit the productive experimentation and innovation activities
Speaker 4: that would lead to future successes.
Speaker 3: So I see both kinds of errors in organizations.
Speaker 4: A failure to experiment enough, necessarily incurring failures along the way,
Speaker 4: and a failure to prevent some of the preventable accidents
Speaker 4: and bad decisions that we see all around us.
Speaker 2: So I'm guessing for all this to work in an organization,
Speaker 2: you have to have a climate of openness and one
Speaker 2: that where you're not getting going to get in trouble
Speaker 2: if you venture out and make mistakes. And I don't know.
Speaker 2: For some reason, earlier today i was reading the preface
Speaker 2: to the book, and I'm thinking, like God, would this
Speaker 2: any of this apply to Congress? I don't think so.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's I think in earlier times it
Speaker 4: would apply to Congress. Congress is an organization just like
Speaker 4: any other. And I have to admit that most of
Speaker 4: you know, the research I've done and the organizations I've
Speaker 4: studied is done with an assumption of a good faith
Speaker 4: effort to perform well and a good faith effort to
Speaker 4: do your job, and even with a good faith effort
Speaker 4: to have a really effective organization that is serving its
Speaker 4: clients or serving its constituents well. Mistakes and failures still happen.
Speaker 4: But when you have an organization where it no longer
Speaker 4: seems clear that the goal is to perform well and
Speaker 4: serve the public, then some of the basic assumptions of
Speaker 4: my research and my findings may no longer hold.
Speaker 1: Are there any sort of common causes of failure? Is
Speaker 1: it you know? Is it simple enough to boil them
Speaker 1: down to a few things I don't know, hubrius or
Speaker 1: you know, too much risk taking? Are there any sort
Speaker 1: of common threads that seem to appear over and over?
Speaker 4: Absolutely common? See I identify three kinds of failure. Basic
Speaker 4: failure is complex failures and intelligent failures. The third kind,
Speaker 4: the intelligent failures, are the good kind, the kind we
Speaker 4: want more of. They're essentially discoveries. There they bring new
Speaker 4: knowledge in territory that we haven't plowed yet. So it's
Speaker 4: it's they're invaluable.
Speaker 1: Could an example.
Speaker 4: Sure a scientific Let's say you're a I mean, this
Speaker 4: is maybe an obvious example, but if you're a scientist
Speaker 4: and you have and you're the leading edge of some
Speaker 4: scientific field and you have a hypothesis that something might
Speaker 4: work and be a great discovery, and then you try
Speaker 4: it and it doesn't work. That is a failure, but
Speaker 4: it is a discovery. It tells you that that hypothesis
Speaker 4: was wrong and gives you new information that you previously
Speaker 4: lacked about what to try next.
Speaker 3: That that's a science example. But in our lives, you know.
Speaker 4: Just let's say dating, you might have you might go
Speaker 4: on a on a date and have good reason to
Speaker 4: believe this could work out, but it falls short, and
Speaker 4: you can't call that any thing but an intelligent failure.
Speaker 4: Couldn't go in advance that it wouldn't work.
Speaker 2: And I got to ask this question because it's one
Speaker 2: of these market themes that we have. Where does artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence then fit into what you do and what organizations
Speaker 2: do well.
Speaker 4: Artificial intelligence, you know, essentially works quickly with a lot
Speaker 4: more data than our brains can work with. So it
Speaker 4: could it could be used to help us prevent these
Speaker 4: preventable failures that I was referring to before, the basic failures,
Speaker 4: the complex failures. It could it could help us when
Speaker 4: we're about to make consequential decisions that are either irreversible
Speaker 4: or at least very high stakes and under conditions of uncertainty.
Speaker 4: It could help us make those decisions with better data,
Speaker 4: more informed by all the available data. And it could
Speaker 4: also help us generate better experiments, which would lead to
Speaker 4: maybe fewer intelligentailures and more discoveries.
Speaker 3: But still you'd have to have some intelligent failures.
Speaker 1: So you talk about failing, well, what's the opposite of that?
Speaker 1: What's just a failure at failing so to speak?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, so there's two kinds of failures at failing,
Speaker 4: and one is we.
Speaker 2: Got to do it in a minute.
Speaker 4: So the failure the failures we get from not trying
Speaker 4: very hard, from mailing it in, you know, from sloppy work.
Speaker 4: That's the wrong kind of wrong, right, That's that's not
Speaker 4: failing well.
Speaker 3: And also the.
Speaker 4: Failure to experiment, to stretch, to grow, to try new
Speaker 4: things and therefore not failing at all, that's also not
Speaker 4: failing well.
Speaker 2: Amy, thanks so much, an absolute pleasure joining us from Cambridge.
Speaker 2: The author Amy Edmondson the right kind of wrong, and
Speaker 2: we should mention again the ft in Schroeder's business book
Speaker 2: of the Year.
Speaker 1: I'm inspired, John, I'm going to go home and fail
Speaker 1: at something. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: But
Speaker 2: Well make sure it's the right kind of that's that's
Speaker 2: Michael