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Addressing the Growing Healthcare Workforce Deficit
The healthcare industry is grappling with significant staffing shortages. As demand for healthcare services continues to rise, maintaining adequate staffing has become increasingly difficult, impacting the quality of care. According to Mercer’s Healthcare Labor Market Projections, the U.S. healthcare workforce is expected to grow to 18.6 million by 2028. However, demand will still outpace supply. A projected shortfall of over 100,000 workers will further strain an already burdened system.
Healthcare organizations must act now to address these looming shortages. To explore proactive solutions, we spoke with Rob Kitto, DVP of program management at Qualivis, who shared three key strategies for navigating future workforce challenges.
Community Partnerships & Scholarship Programs
Healthcare systems are addressing staffing shortages by forming partnerships with local educational institutions and implementing scholarship programs to support future healthcare professionals. By collaborating with schools, healthcare providers can create career-aligned programs that give students the skills and hands-on experience needed to fill high-demand roles. For instance, Memorial Hermann Health System partnered with Aldine ISD to launch Health Education and Learning (HEAL) High School, which offers specialized pathways in healthcare fields, allowing students to gain real-world experience through job-shadowing and internships. As Kitto noted, “In a lot of cases, it’s not that there aren’t enough students who want to learn healthcare professions. Instead, there simply aren’t enough resources to educate them.”
Additionally, scholarship programs offer financial support for students in exchange for a work commitment after graduation. Programs like the Virginia Department of Health’s Earn to Learn program provide stipends for nursing students during clinical training, helping accelerate the development of skilled healthcare workers. These combined strategies—education partnerships and financial incentives—help healthcare systems build a stable, skilled workforce while providing opportunities for students to pursue meaningful careers.
Build a Flexible Workforce
Building a flexible workforce focuses on creating staffing models that offer healthcare workers more control over their schedules, without necessarily transitioning them to permanent full-time roles. Healthcare systems are revitalizing and expanding their float pools into system-wide or even regional resource pools, giving employees the option to move between locations and shifts based on demand. This strategy caters to the growing desire for work-life balance by offering flexible schedules, attracting workers who prefer short-term or gig-style contracts.
While traveler conversion aims for permanent integration, flexible workforce models prioritize adaptability, allowing healthcare systems to quickly adjust staffing levels across multiple sites as needed. By tapping into this gig workforce, healthcare organizations can not only improve coverage but also maintain a pool of readily available talent who value schedule flexibility over full-time commitments.
At Qualivis, we understand the importance of sustainable workforce strategies that reduce reliance on temporary labor while maintaining quality patient care. In a recent success story, our teams partnered with a healthcare system to implement a comprehensive strategy that prioritized flexibility and internal workforce development, showcasing an approach we champion at Qualivis.
The healthcare system redesigned and rebranded its internal float pool into a flexible staffing unit, giving employees the freedom to manage their schedules while ensuring system-wide coverage. This strategic move reduced nurse vacancy rates from 15% to zero and lowered turnover from 28% to 13%. At Qualivis, we take pride in fostering similar solutions that empower healthcare organizations to create adaptable staffing models for long-term success.
Traveler Conversion Programs
Traveler conversion programs are focused specifically on transitioning temporary healthcare workers, such as travel nurses, into permanent staff roles. These programs help healthcare systems address long-term staffing needs, reduce reliance on costly temporary labor and improve workforce stability. By offering travelers incentives like bonuses, career development opportunities or tuition reimbursement, organizations encourage temporary workers to take on permanent roles. The key advantage here is retention: travelers are already familiar with the organization’s operations, culture and protocols, which means they can be integrated into permanent roles with shorter onboarding times.
Qualivis has been successfully partnering with UVA Health System to convert temporary travelers into its internal resource pool. They integrated travelers into their team culture from day one, fostering an environment of long-term commitment. By narrowing the pay gap between travel and permanent roles, they successfully converted 169 travelers over the course of one year. This included a range of positions from general RN roles to leadership positions, securing a stable workforce for the future. Through consistent engagement and collaborative efforts with HR, Qualivis and UVA have been able to achieve significant success in this area.
A Path Forward
Innovative partnerships, scholarship programs, and traveler conversion initiatives are unique ways to set yourself up for success as healthcare staffing continues to be an issue. Additionally, creative strategies like boomerang programs, which re-engage former employees, and tapping into the local gig economy for flexible scheduling solutions, offer further ways to ensure adequate staffing. By adopting these approaches, healthcare organizations can navigate future workforce challenges while maintaining high-quality care.