Explore the latest healthcare workforce trends and strategies in our Knowledge Center. Each week, we provide actionable insights and expert tips to help industry professionals stay informed and enhance your workforce management with our up-to-date content.
As we enter 2026, healthcare leaders are confronting a hard truth: traditional staffing and scheduling methods no longer meet the demands of modern hospitals. Rising patient volumes, staff burnout, and persistent workforce shortages are pushing systems to their limits, while the next generation of nurses and clinicians expects flexibility, autonomy, and meaningful work.
Workforce challenges are a daily reality for many health systems. At any time, nurse leaders may be juggling dozens of open shifts across hospitals and specialties, from ICU shortages to unexpected pediatric callouts to med-surg units stretched thin. Without a reliable solution, they must rely on expensive travel nurses or push full-time staff into overtime, driving up labor costs and fueling burnout. Sound familiar?
Effective hospital float pool management is a powerful lever for healthcare workforce efficiency. When float nurses are properly resourced and empowered to practice at the top of their scope, they deliver measurable cost savings, greater staffing flexibility, and improved operational performance. Yet without strategic oversight, float pools can quickly become underutilized, leading to higher turnover, staffing instability, and compromised care quality.
Today’s nursing workforce spans four generations, each with unique priorities—flexibility, stability, and purpose. From Baby Boomers easing into retirement to Gen Z seeking autonomy, a one-size-fits-all model no longer works.
Hospitals have long struggled to build and manage internal nurse float pools, often relying on manual processes and outdated tools. These practices hinder effective scheduling coordination, credential tracking, and real-time responses to staffing changes, resulting in costly, inefficient, and hard-to-scale float pool management. Sound familiar?
Does your hospital or health system rely too much on overtime and agency staffing to cover shift vacancies? If so, it’s time to rethink your healthcare staffing strategy. Here’s why making a change is essential—and how it’s easier than you might expect.
While there was already a shortage of skilled nursing staff and other healthcare workers prior to the pandemic, the past three years have pushed the shortage to critical levels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are 2.1 million job openings in healthcare, which is expected to grow to 3.2 million by 2026 as baby boomers age and require more care.
