The rideshare concept is pretty simple. You need to go someplace, so you use an app to put out a call to nearby drivers willing to take you there.

Tony Braswell thought the same formula might work filling nursing shifts and founded Gale Healthcare Solutions to put out a call to nearby nurses willing to take their shifts.

Gale says it has 67,000 nurses in 40 states filling “tens of thousands of open shifts every month.” It offers advantages for the employers, who can quickly fill staffing gaps, as well as the nurses, who can choose where and when to work and get paid the same day.

Braswell bootstrapped the Tampa-based Gale, named after Florence Nightingale, in 2016. It announced its first outside funding last year — $60-million in growth equity investment from San Francisco-based FTV Capital. The money is being used to enhance Gale’s technology and expand its clinician workforce.

Braswell, a computer scientist, has spent 32 years working in health care staffing and boasts that his software allows nurses to be paid within 10 minutes of ending a shift. That can be vital for many nurses, especially single parents.

The provider pays Gale a fee to post an opening and covers the cost of each shift. The app lists the job’s location, the type of nurse needed, the hours and the hourly rate.

Revenue has more than quadrupled in the past three years, the company claims.

Gale declined to say how many people it employs at its Tampa headquarters, but it has had a bumpy year adjusting to shifts in the tech and health care sectors. Gale reportedly laid off 100 people earlier this fall – the second round of job cuts in 2023 – as part of a restructuring.

The company has said it hopes to add 200,000 more nurses in the next two years.

“Traditional staffing firms,” Braswell has said, “are not able to provide service as quickly or reliably or at the scale that platforms can. They are going to have a hard time competing.” — By Michael Fechter