Chromie Health, an artificial intelligence hospital operations platform, has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding in parallel with the launch of its flagship SMS AI-driven staffing agency, Chromie Dispatch.
AIX Ventures led the pre-seed round. AIX Ventures partner Krish Ramadurai said in a statement that the company is “building an AI agent layer for hospitals.”
“By tackling department-level disruption with a true no-code, SMS-based solution, Chromie is poised to unlock billions in value across the healthcare system,” said Ramadurai.
Douglas Ford, CEO and co-founder of Chromie Health, told Fierce Healthcare that the company is growing rapidly due to customer and investor demand.
“These funds will really help us grow our team, meet demand, improve our product and make it even better than we are now,” Ford said. “And what we’re most excited about is building a new AI agent that will become a complete operational layer for hospitals, facilitating the staffing and coordination process.”
The idea behind Chromie Health, launched in 2024, was personal to Ford, who said staffing shortages were complicating the already severe intensive care unit (ICU) experience for myocarditis.
“I was personally shocked to learn that even large hospitals still use pen-and-paper whiteboards and Excel sheets to manage hundreds of nurses,” Ford said. “One last-minute phone call can lead to hours of texts, phone calls, spreadsheets, and utter chaos.”
Ford said the experience, including the burnout experienced by nurses, showed her “how overwhelmed hospitals are.” “And it’s not that they don’t care about or don’t want help. It’s that they’re struggling because the system for coordinating staffing has been incredibly manual and reactive,” he said.
Ford said the current staffing system is causing nurse scheduling, charge nurses and manager burnout, while also increasing overtime costs and ultimately impacting patient care.
When a shift begins in Chromie Dispatch, the AI agent sends a text message to a qualified nurse, who responds with a yes or no. The tool’s unique ranking algorithm lets you select and schedule the best responders, or you can leave it up to your nursing manager.
According to the company, Chromie Dispatch can close gaps 60 times faster than manual scheduling. And Ford says it has already helped cover more than 35,000 last-minute nursing shifts.
Sarah Mitchell, nurse manager at St. Joseph’s Hospital, said that since implementing the solution, the department has “significantly streamlined” its last-minute scheduling needs.
“No more digging through call logs or paying exorbitant agency fees,” Mitchell says. “Our staff feel supported and we have already reduced overtime costs by 25%.”
Chromie says 750 hospitals are on the waiting list for the service, which will ultimately facilitate the development of a “full suite of intelligent agents” aimed at streamlining workflows and optimizing workforce management.
“One of the biggest reasons hospitals are excited about Chromie is that it requires no IT integration or patient data,” said Ford. “We designed the system with nurses in mind to be incredibly lightweight and easy to deploy.”
