Photo: Burnout is no longer an isolated concern — it is reshaping how hospitals deliver care and how staff experience their work. | Photo Credit (all): Drive Health
By Matt Willert
Health systems across the United States are facing a daunting reality: a projected shortage of more than 200,000 nurses by the end of the decade. High turnover, rising patient acuity and unrelenting demand have stretched frontline teams to their limits. Burnout is no longer an isolated concern — it is reshaping how hospitals deliver care and how staff experience their work.
“I’ve seen firsthand that thoughtful design and proactive care coordination can dramatically ease staff pressure,” said Jim Stringham, Chief Strategy Officer at Drive Health and former leader of government health plans at Banner Health and Magellan Health. “Even small interventions like coordinating follow-ups or ensuring patients understand their care plans can help nurses spend more time on direct patient care.”
Drive Health uses experiences like these to inform its perspective: delivering high-quality care depends not only on clinical skill but on optimizing workflows, supporting staff and ensuring every patient interaction is meaningful.
AI Caregiver at Scale
One promising solution comes in the form of agentic AI caregivers. Drive Health’s platform, Avery, is designed to take on lower-acuity administrative and patient engagement tasks, allowing bedside staff to focus on higher-value work.
“By automating routine administrative tasks, Avery allows nurses to focus on what matters most: delivering quality care to patients,” said Stringham. “This technology is not about replacing the human touch, but about giving clinicians room to bring that human touch forward in every patient interaction.”
This approach is being deployed at scale through a partnership with the nation’s foremost provider of virtual nursing services. Together, the organizations are implementing Avery across 2,000 hospital beds. Integrated into that systems, Avery handles admissions, patient education, discharge coordination and purposeful rounding, reducing paperwork and freeing nurses to be present at the bedside.
What AI Caregivers Can Do
The benefits extend beyond staff relief. Avery plays a central role in transitional care by guiding patients through discharge, scheduling follow-ups, arranging transportation and checking prescriptions. After discharge, it continues to send reminders, answer questions and connect patients with community resources. Importantly, outliers are flagged for review by a human nurse, ensuring that clinical judgment remains central.
Dr. Leeza Constantoulakis, Chief Nursing Officer at Drive Health, added that this is exactly the kind of support she wished her teams had in years past. “During my time integrating behavioral and physical health, we saw how proactive outreach could prevent crises,” she said. “Now, Avery automates those best practices at scale instead of forcing teams to pick and choose who receives extra support.”
Early pilots reflect these advantages: admission questionnaires are completed more quickly, discharge instructions are delivered more consistently and nurses spend more of their shifts at the bedside rather than in front of a computer. Because Avery continues to engage patients after discharge, unplanned readmissions decline and patients report feeling more connected to their care teams.
Ensuring Safe Adoption
Rolling out AI in healthcare isn’t a simple undertaking. It requires oversight, transparency and strict adherence to clinical standards. Avery operates within defined protocols, escalating urgent issues to nurses and documenting all interactions in real time within the electronic health record.
To guide safe adoption, Drive Health launched a Clinical Advisory Council (CAC) composed of nurse executives, frontline clinicians and academic leaders. The group ensures AI fits naturally into clinical workflows, respects professional judgment and reflects the day-to-day realities of care delivery. A key part of that conversation is building models that support long-term workforce resilience.
“One of the most consistent themes we hear from health systems is the need for greater flexibility and sustainability in staffing models,” said Constantoulakis “Bringing AI caregivers into existing workflows gives nurses more support and helps patients receive the steady, timely care they deserve.”
Building Operational and Financial Resilience
For hospital leaders, AI also offers a lever for operational and financial sustainability. Labor costs can account for more than half of a hospital’s operating budget. Reducing burnout-driven turnover while optimizing workflows has an immediate impact on both margins and staff stability.
In the long run, these efficiencies can flow straight into hospital strategy and long-term facility planning. Labor savings and smoother workflows open the door for reinvestment, whether it be new services, facility upgrades or advanced clinical programs, all while giving hospitals flexibility to handle unpredictable patient demand.
Designing for the Future
Looking ahead, AI caregivers like Avery are becoming part of broader facility and care design conversations. Hospitals are already beginning to view digital infrastructure not as an add-on, but as a core element of how care environments are planned and operated.
Technology enablement has the potential to free up as much as 15% of nurses’ time, but realizing that benefit requires intentional design. From workflow integration to reliable connectivity, leaders must ensure that physical spaces and digital tools work hand-in-hand to reduce friction rather than create it.
A Call to Collaborate
The implementation of AI in healthcare cannot be a sweeping replacement, but a targeted augmentation aimed at easing clinician burden and enhancing patient outcomes. For executives, the path forward requires balancing innovation with caution, ensuring AI is applied to the right use cases and held to the highest standards of safety and empathy.
“As health systems look to the future, AI has the potential to become a standard component of care delivery infrastructure,” Constantoulakis said. “The organizations that start laying the groundwork now will be the ones best prepared to adapt and thrive in the years ahead.”
Workforce shortages and rising patient expectations necessitate a new model of care delivery, and one that blends human-centered design with intelligent automation. By pairing frontline insight with emerging technology, hospitals can chart a path through today’s staffing crisis and build a foundation for the future of care.
Matt Willert is the Chief Operations Officer at Drive Health.