FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 20, 2024
Contact: Anthony Triana
405-818-0791
Apricot Technologies launches AI-Powered platform to revolutionize home health nursing
Oklahoma City startup utilizes AI to reduce nurse burnout and improve patient care, backed by Cortado Ventures
OKLAHOMA CITY — Apricot, an Oklahoma City-based startup that leverages generative AI to reduce the time that home health nurses spend preparing required documentation, has launched with Cortado Ventures as the lead investor.
“We’ve created technology using generative AI to decrease the time it takes home-health nurses to complete accurate, compliant home health patient documentation, allowing these health care practitioners to focus on patient care,” said Apricot Founder and CEO Trent Smith.
The home health industry faces a crisis; despite a growing demand for home health services, home health operators face increasingly low profit margins and severe staffing shortages. The paperwork required of home health nurses has become increasingly complex and time-consuming, causing nurse burnout and keeping nurses from spending crucial time with the patients who need it most.
Smith, a current operator of a large home health company in the Midcontinent region, was inspired to develop Apricot in response to these challenges. “We want to treat nurses like the heroes they are,” said Smith. “We are aiming to make the home health nursing job the most desirable in all of health care.”
Apricot reduces a nurse’s documentation time by over 85%, increasing nurse job satisfaction and the number of patients that can be served by a single nurse, which in turn grows per-patient margins and allows a home health agency to accept more referrals without hiring additional staff. The platform also allows home health organizations to accept lower-margin Medicare Advantage patients without sacrificing profit.
“The staffing shortages and burnout facing the nursing industry have ramifications for all of us, and Apricot is able to alleviate some of that by reducing the most arduous part of the job – documentation,” said Cortado Ventures’ Managing Partner Nathaniel Harding. “We’re excited about the potential of Apricot, as well as the opportunity to continue investing in technologies that impact the daily lives of Oklahomans and beyond.”
“I’m so grateful to be in a position to help change the lives of nurses working in the home health industry,” said Smith. “The response that we’ve had to this product has been quite humbling – we are already on track to serve more than 800 nurses and 20,000 patients every month by early fall.”
A native Oklahoman, Smith is also the owner and CEO of Accentra Home Health and Hospice. He has successfully exited three startups, all based in Oklahoma City. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Aviation Management, and starred on the OU Football team where he was a four-year starter claiming two Big XII titles, served as a team captain, and won the 2000 National Championship. He went on to play four seasons in the NFL with the Ravens and 49ers. He is a former Oklahoma State Board of Education member, is the Chapter President of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO – OKC), and formerly served as a commissioner on the Oklahoma Employment Securities Commission after being appointed by Governor Stitt.
About Apricot
Apricot’s mission is to empower home health nurses to focus on patient care by reducing the time that they spend on paperwork. Apricot offers a user-friendly platform that integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, improving efficiency and care quality while empowering nurses to serve more patients effectively. Learn more at apricothealth.ai.
About Cortado Ventures:
Founded by a team of seasoned CEOs and industry veterans in 2020, Cortado Ventures is a venture capital firm that works to define the Midcontinent’s success story for generations to come. Going beyond raising capital to support businesses – Cortado’s deep experience as leaders and innovators helps their portfolio companies accelerate their growth through strategic planning, training, and guidance. We focus efforts on entrepreneurs and startups who are founder-led by people with innovative, disruptive, and business-to-business ideas in the insurtech, biotech, aerospace, fintech, energy tech, or ag tech sectors that are a natural fit for the mid-continent region. Learn more at cortado.ventures.
###