Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Benavides.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Vanessa. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I became a registered nurse in 2012 but I have been in healthcare for over 20 years. One of my fellow nurse friends (who knew I had an interest in innovation) convinced me to apply to Magnet recognized, St. Joseph Hospital, in Orange. I already had a job working in a cardiac unit that I truly loved but when he explained that St. Joseph’s Hospital had partnered with an innovation incubator – I was curious. I took the position on a unit I always wanted to work on and immediately started submitting my ideas to the innovation incubator on a consistent basis.
Over two years, I had submitted 12 different ideas and was blessed to work with some incredible minds from around the globe, including those from Dell. In January of 2016, I was sitting in an Uber talking to my driver about how Uber was going to take their model to the Private Jet transportation industry. At that very moment, I received a call from my unit charge nurse asking if I could pick up an extra shift for the next morning. Although I truly wanted to help my unit out, I had already worked seven shifts in a row and I needed a break. I remember hearing the desperation in her voice and feeling sympathetic as I had experienced that exact feeling before. Due to the nursing shortage, trying to appropriately staff a hospital unit is almost always an impossible! That is when the idea came to my mind – why don’t we create an Uber-like healthcare staffing app and platform that would assist facilities schedule their healthcare providers on demand. By the time I got home (15 minutes later), I had already worked out much of my plan and strategy… Go RN was born. By early February 2016, I had a pitch deck in place and the interest of several individuals who worked in the healthcare industry to bring this idea to life. The decision was made to take this idea to market with an incredible team I was blessed to build and we have since never looked back.
Go RN received it’s 5,000th healthcare provider application last month, has launched it’s tech into their servicing facilities and is beginning to scale. We currently provide service in Orange County, LA, and Riverside and have begun plans to scale to neighboring states by the first quarter of next year. Go RN has also taken leaps and bounds in terms of the functionality of its app & platform. What started out as a one-click solution to on-demand healthcare staffing has truly turned into a complete enterprise solutions platform. Our app and platform allows our vetted and highly qualified healthcare providers to place their availability on our app and allows our facilities to schedule, performance rate, confirm compliance, and audit invoices and authorize invoices for payment. Go RN is proud to have brought much-needed technology to this complicated process and continuously look for ways to improve the system and become better.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has definitely not been a smooth road but honestly, I would not want it any other way. I have learned so much. Not having a “tech” background, I believe was the most difficult initially, as I did not really know where to start when it came to how I was going to build a team that could code the functionality our team wanted for our app/platform. Now, we are partnered with a technology company out of LA and I am grateful for our relationship. Then naturally, fundraising… here I was, a registered nurse who also did not take one business course in college but I knew Go RN would work and I was never willing to give up on the idea. An idea I knew would forever change the way healthcare staffing would be done.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
What I am most proud of as a company is that we are owned and operated by healthcare providers – approximately 90% of our members are physicians, NP’s, nurses, EMT’s, healthcare administrators, etc. I believe this gives our company the advantage of truly knowing this space. We know what hospitals/healthcare facilities need from a healthcare registry to have a good experience and also what our healthcare providers need to have a good shift. We also do a lot in terms of training and orienting our healthcare providers before sending them out to their first shift at a facility. We develop great relationships with both our healthcare providers and our servicing facilities and we do a good job at continuously asking how we can become better.
What were you like growing up?
I come from very humble beginnings. I was born and raised in Santa Ana, CA. I had very young parents and money was often tight. We moved around a lot but with that being said, my parents made sure we stayed in the safest neighborhood, best school district in the area and with the same friends. Although money was tight, I never felt like I was missing anything because there was ALWAYS plenty of love, support and encouragement. My parents always reminded us that we could do and be whatever we wanted – as long as we were willing to put in the work and never give up.
As a little, I was pretty shy… still am. My parents say that I was super easy… never wanted to decide for the rest of my siblings – always wanted “whatever they want”. I am super close with my siblings and am blessed to be on this startup journey with two of them and my sister-in-law. I have two older brothers and one younger sister and am definitely the “caretaker” of the family. I have always been a creative, doodler of sorts. I was super tomboy – loved playing all sports and hanging with the boys. I started working as soon as I was legally able (15.5 years old) and have never stopped. In high school, I juggled school, sports, competitive cheer and work so that I could contribute to my family’s income. I was super competitive… mostly against myself and that continues to be the case as an adult. I love learning new things and pushing myself to my limits.
Contact Info:
- Address: Go RN
313 N Birch Street, Unit 102
Santa Ana, CA. 92701 - Website: www.gornapp.com
- Phone: 844-888-GoRN (4676)
- Email: contact@gornapp.com
- Instagram: go.rn.app
- Facebook: Go RN App & Nurse Registry
- Twitter: GoRNApp
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