TWELVE-year-old MidlevelU Inc., which offers accredited ThriveAP education and training programs for the healthcare sector's Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) and the facilities that employ them, last week reported it had received a nearly $3MM equity investment from one undisclosed party.

The company's focus is on the professional needs of pre-licensure nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician associates (PAs), and on supporting their professional development by providing self-guided, on-demand courses, communities of learning taught by board-certified, actively practicing practitioners and other benefits.

A quick scan of the sector affirms surging interest in cultivation and recruitment of APPs, as reflected within the websites of Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (links here and here), Hospital Corporation of America (HCA link)and Stanford Medical, among other institutions and businesses.

CEO Jim Creason

ThriveAP's SEC filing was made Friday by CEO and Director James Creason, who joined the company 18 months ago, after 16 years with Franklin-based Censis Technologies, which focuses on surgical assets tracking and inventory solutions.

Also aboard the ThriveAP filing were Founder-Director Erin Tolbert, who also once served as CEO; and, Directors Ralph Davis, Will Fitzgibbon (Silvermark), Matt Barrett (MRB Consulting), and Dan Tarpey, an executive with UPMC Enterprises.

The operating team also includes Creason's former colleague at Censis, Michael Walsh, who joined ThriveAP less than a year ago as director of client success and government relations.

The team also includes VP-Clinical Operations Veronica Hill; and, VP-Growth Jason Holcomb. The company's website today indicates it looks to hire a director of marketing, as well as "expert faculty for our upcoming Psych Mental Health, Critical Care and Cardiology transition to practice curriculums."

Among ThriveAP's announced milestones in the past year:

► It allied with the Academy of Physician Associates in Cardiology (APAC) to support post-graduate transition to practice for APPs who are working in cardiology settings and-or transferring among cardiology subspecialties.

► ThriveJourney was unveiled as its "latest innovation in transition to practice education" for "aspiring, pre-licensure nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician associates (PAs) preparing to enter the workforce."

Founded in 2012, the company adopted the ThriveAP and ThriveAP+ brands under which it now operates in May 2020.

The debut of the ThriveAP brand came amid waves of COVID-19 pandemic deaths that rose and fell worldwide for three years.

The pandemic accelerated concerns about staffing physicians and APPs that had been growing since at least the beginning of this century, and which have been intensified by the swelling ranks of aging Baby Boomers and other factors.

As many readers will recall, COVID and systemic healthcare delivery issues -- particularly with respect to the supply of nurses -- drew intense scrutiny at the state level, partly because APPs are typically licensed by states after each licensee is certified by national professional organizations.

As part of Tennesseans' responses to COVID, in Spring 2020 then-first-term Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee issued Executive Orders 15 and 28, temporarily suspending some practice and registration burdens for nurse practitioners and advanced practice nurse practitioners. (To-date, COVID has been cited in at least 35 of Gov. Lee's 103 Executive Orders.)

In 2022, a study by professionals at the University of Tennessee, UT Health Sciences Center, and Vanderbilt University reviewed the history and potentially lasting impact of Tennessee's COVID-related regulatory relief of 2020, with findings summarized here.

In becoming CEO, Creason succeeded Chris Poole MBA, who left to become managing director of 25m Health, the community healthtech-oriented venture studio that was originally backed by Lifepoint Health and PE Apollo.

VNC research finds that longtime healthcare-sector investor Steven Irwin Geringer, a Nashville native and longtime health-sector investor, was also a director of MidlevelU prior to his death in 2022, at age 76.

Additional resources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10. VNC

. last edited 1108 12 February 2024