Strategic partnership addresses national healthcare labor shortage by offloading lower-acuity tasks from bedside staff and improving financial outcomes for hospitals

Drive Health, a leader in agentic healthcare labor solutions, today announced a strategic contract with Banyan Medical Solutions, the nation’s foremost provider of virtual nursing services. Together, the two companies will deploy an integrated AI co-pilot solution designed to alleviate the impact of the U.S. healthcare staffing crisis by augmenting human care teams in acute care settings across the country.

This partnership brings Drive Health’s agentic technology, Avery—trained to execute standardized administrative and patient engagement workflows—into hospitals already supported by Banyan’s virtual nurses. By integrating agentic automation into clinical environments, bedside teams are empowered to focus on high-acuity patient care, while routine activities such as admissions, education, discharge coordination, and purposeful rounding are handled autonomously and with precision. Comprehensive escalation, delegation, and supervision protocols ensure that clinical teams stay at the forefront of care.

“Our mission at Banyan has always been to expand the reach of the clinical workforce without compromising care quality,” said Tony Buda, CEO of Banyan Medical Solutions. “Drive Health’s technology gives us a powerful new lever to relieve administrative burdens and enhance the bedside experience for patients. Following significant diligence, we’re thrilled to partner with Drive Health to lead this next phase of transformation in acute care.”

Amid a national shortage of more than 200,000 nurses projected by the end of the decade, hospitals are increasingly turning to virtual and AI-enabled care solutions to optimize operational efficiency, patient safety and staff well-being. This collaboration introduces a scalable way to improve financial and workforce performance across medical-surgical, ICU, and ED units—delivering measurable improvements in clinician satisfaction, hospital margins, and clinical throughput.

As part of the agreement, Drive Health and Banyan will deploy their joint solution across 2,000 hospital beds by the end of 2025, beginning with flagship sites in Q3 and expanding to additional systems throughout Q4. Both organizations will continue to co-develop novel workflows tailored to the unique demands of inpatient settings, ensuring compliance, safety, and compassion remain core to every encounter.

The initiative builds upon Drive Health’s recent momentum in Medicaid, where Avery is contracted to address staffing and engagement gaps in underserved communities, including the Healthy Baby program in partnership with the State of Illinois and Google Public Sector.

“This partnership with Banyan reinforces our vision—deploying our agentic technology under the general supervision of human clinicians to deliver better care at scale,” said Kevin Longoria, CEO of Drive Health. “It’s a direct reflection of our mission to simplify healthcare and support those who carry the system on their shoulders. Bedside care teams are the backbone of care delivery, and they deserve tools that ease the burden, not add to it.”

About Banyan Medical Solutions

Banyan Medical Solutions pioneered the virtual nursing care model that integrates bedside teams and patients, addressing staffing challenges while enhancing care quality. As an end-to-end solution, Banyan provides everything needed to launch virtual nursing in just 90 days—including hardware, credentialed staffing, and proprietary technology—making enterprise-wide transformation faster and more effective.

Our platform supports real-time communication, seamless data sharing, and continuous patient monitoring to improve workflow efficiency, clinical outcomes, and return on investment.

As the healthcare industry’s most experienced and scalable virtual nursing provider, Banyan Medical Solutions is a trusted partner to hospitals nationwide. To learn more about how Banyan can provide sustainable, enterprise-wide support for your organization, visit banyanmed.com or call 866-264-0469.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250826024996/en/