“Nurses are leaving the profession in droves due to burnout and unsafe working conditions, I was one of them. I have first-hand experience with what nurses experience daily and what resources we need to provide to prevent nurses from leaving the workforce and continue caring for our communities.”
Meet Hannah Berns GR22, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of The Nursing Beat, a short daily rundown of important, relevant and meaningful news and resources for nurses. It features content ranging from professional guidance and practices to social issues and personal stories, all laser-focused on what nurses need.
Hannah and her co-founder, Tamara AL-Yassin, both nursing graduates in 2012, met while working in the emergency room in a hospital in California. Their entrepreneurial spirit was ignited during COVID when they started the Acknowledgement Collective LLC, honoring nurses with special Warrior pins who wrote their personal stories. This led to a contract with the Emergency Nurses Association with the goal of providing a pin to every ER nurse in the state.
Inspired by this first venture, Hannah and her co-founder decided to go back to school. Hannah earned a Masters in Healthcare Innovation from Penn. After being introduced to another newsletter in this space during school, Hannah and Tamara decided to rebrand and grow the idea. Fast forward to 2022, when The Nursing Beat (TNB) was born. Hannah is the Chief Operating Officer of TNB.
TNB is currently the only digital newsletter for nurses which has led to high profile accolades from Fast Company, Healthcare Brew, Minority Nurse and more. While the Warrior pins served to encourage nurses to craft their personal stories, The Nursing Beat is here to amplify their voices to another level.
Tell us a bit about your company
The Nursing Beat (TNB) is a nurse-driven media company that produces the only daily email newsletter for nurses & allied healthcare professionals on the market. We keep busy healthcare professionals up to date with healthcare news, health tech, cutting-edge research, and new-to-market medications while also offering professional advancement resources, events, and more.
What is your funding stage?
Series A
What inspired you to start your business — what opportunity in the market are you seeking to address?
Many of the nursing resources on the market are siloed by nursing specialty or location. We are breaking these silos and bringing nurses together and creating a community to connect, inform, and empower nurses no matter how many years they’ve been in the profession, their specialty, or their location. There is no other daily newsletter that speaks directly to nurses in our unique language and common vernacular.
What is it about your personal background, experience, or perspective that fuels your passion for this venture?
I worked in both adult and pediatric emergency departments for over 11 years. Nurses are leaving the profession in droves due to burnout and unsafe working conditions, I was one of them. I have first-hand experience with what nurses experience daily and what resources we need to provide to prevent nurses from leaving the workforce and continue caring for our communities. I am fiercely passionate about my nurse community which fuels my drive to make The Nursing Beat succeed.
What are one or two of the biggest wins or most encouraging experiences you’ve had so far?
Biggest win: After launching in August 2022, we were able to close Series A funding by December and raised almost $1M. For new “nursepreneurs” who had never fundraised prior, this was a huge win for my co-founder/CEO & myself.
Proudest win: We are nurse-driven. We have a nurse at every level of our organization from our Board of Directors, our executive & editorial team, to our content contributors. We even have nursing student interns. Nurses are also not often thought of as entrepreneurs. But we certainly have the skillset to do so. Our organization is for nurses, by nurses, and that makes me unbelievably proud!
What has been one or two of your biggest learnings so far?
First, nurses make really great entrepreneurs — we can triage, delegate, we know our scope, when to ask for help, and we know how to put out fires. The skills I developed as a nurse have aided a seamless transition to entrepreneurship, and continue to do so. Nurses can also grind through 16 hour shifts with ease, a skill set I have used in my current position!
Second, you can’t do it alone. You need the right team and the right skill sets. The world of business is dynamic, so I’m always learning something from someone else or finding someone who can help me.
What is an obstacle that you are grappling with as you continue to build this venture?
Finding the right teammates. I want talented people who I can trust. They are out there, but it just takes time. Growth takes time. The team my co-founder and I have put together thus far is stellar; we wouldn’t be here today without them.
What surprises have you encountered as an entrepreneur? Something out of left field?
What has surprised me the most is how supportive the founder & start-up community is. I’m part of a few start-up & operator groups and every time I have a question about something, someone has an answer, or if they don’t, they know someone who does have the answer. It’s a very pay-it-forward attitude that I’ve absorbed into my daily practice.
How can the WAFFA community help you?
Any connections to other nurse entrepreneurs within WAFFA.
What has been the most rewarding thing about starting your own business?
Looking back and seeing what we started and where we are today. We started as a team of two, but now we have over 40 contractors, part-time employees, fractionals, and interns working with us.
It’s also so rewarding to look at the skill sets I’ve gained this past year — business development, sales, HR, strategy, finance — all skills I never thought I’d find myself immersed in while working as a nurse.
Learn more about The Nursing Beat here, and connect with Hannah here.
