Impact Investing | November 18, 2021

Achieve Partners acquires Ro Health to create apprenticeships for school health workers

Roodgally Senatus
ImpactAlpha Editor

Roodgally Senatus

ImpactAlpha, November 18 — New York-based Achieve Partners has acquired Ro Health, a Seattle-based medical staffing and home health agency, to advance an apprenticeship program for entry-level healthcare workers, primarily school nurses and behavioral therapists.

Achieve raised $180 million in June to acquire up to 10 companies to each create 1,000 apprenticeships per year to train people for entry level jobs in sectors with skills gaps.

Among the five companies it has bought so far are cybersecurity provider Metmox and Optimum Healthcare IT, and plans to acquire five more within two years. “We’re investing in rapidly-growing companies where the biggest problem faced is access to high-quality talent at scale,” Achieve’s Daniel Pianko told ImpactAlpha.

Good health jobs

More than half of U.S. public schools don’t have a full-time nurse and nearly half lack access to a school psychologist.

The apprenticeship program will address near-term needs “and build stronger talent pipelines for the years to come,” said Ro Health’s Sandie Tracy. “Rather than waiting for workers to show up, it’s incumbent upon health care providers like us to build talent from within”

ShiftMed, an on-demand platform that connects over 60,000 vetted gig health care professionals to more than 700 health care providers raised $45 million at the start of this month.