ClinicianNexus, a startup that connects students with clinical rotations at hospitals, has been accepted into the Los Angeles, Calif.-based Cedars-Sinai Accelerator, a program for innovative digital health companies.
As one of the 11 startups participating in the three-month accelerator, ClinicianNexus will receive $100,000 in funding, access to Cedars-Sinai, a non-profit hospital with locations throughout Southern California and exposure to its broad network of healthcare experts.
"It's an amazing organization. We're still pinching ourselves," CEO Katrina Anderson told Minne Inno. "A program like this is a super unique opportunity for healthcare companies, and it's just perfectly aligned with what we need right now."
ClinicianNexus' service allows hospitals to post their clinical-rotation schedules so that medical students (such as nurses and physician assistants) can more easily apply for and schedule training. Currently, more than 10,000 students are registered on the platform, Anderson told Minne Inno.
"Clinical education is a very human-centric, community-centric problem," she explained. "In that setting, there are things that need to be solved that you just can't do with a quick email."
Prior to founding ClinicanNexus, Anderson never saw herself as an entrepreneur. She was working in a communications role at HealthPartners when she noticed how difficult it was for students to coordinate and obtain rotations in hospital settings.
"It became a high-priority project, then something bigger. I realized there was a huge problem in the field that I was equipped to solve," she said.
ClinicianNexus has been growing quickly but quietly since its launch in 2016. In 2017, the Minneapolis company began a partnership with Moreno Valley, Calif.-based Riverside University Health System and has gone on to deploy its platform withing 57 hospitals across 11 states and 100 schools.
Two months ago, ClinicianNexus announced another partnership with PreCheck, a Houston, Texas-based company that provides background screening and ongoing monitoring for around 50 percent of the hospitals in the U.S. Through the partnership, the ClinicianNexus and PreCheck platforms will be integrated for healthcare organizations, allowing them to centralize background checks within the student rotation onboarding process.
Although ClinicianNexus has been building a strong network of clients and partners around the country, particularly in California, Anderson said that the company will likely always be headquartered in Minnesota.
"We're all from Minnesota or Wisconsin, and we love the Twin Cities," she said. "And we're starting to get traction in the area. It feels good to be adopted by your home team."
ClinicianNexus has raised $750,000 to date from family, friends, the Cedars-Sinai program, a few angels and the University of St. Thomas. A newer, larger funding round is currently in the works.
As ClinicianNexus continues to grow, Anderson hopes that the platform will support everyone that utilizes it, including hospitals, healthcare professionals and ultimately the people that they care for.
"When a family member is sick and life is at stake, you don't care about bureaucracy or politics," Anderson said. "You want care – you want it done well and you want it done right."
