What Healthcare Leaders Are Asking About Workforce Today

 Bev Colan, president of Venn, appreciated sharing the stage with Darin Musser, Jimmy Smith, and Shannon Anderson last week at ACHE Congress in Houston. We had the privilege of participating in a panel on Workforce Optimization and the questions from healthcare executives in the room were incredibly telling.

One thing became clear very quickly: workforce optimization is no longer a staffing conversation. It’s a strategic leadership conversation.

Here’s what we heard, and what it tells us about where we need to go.

1. “Why Are Traditional Staffing Models Falling Short?”

A corporate development leader at a healthcare education company put it plainly: Why are traditional staffing models and the supporting software coming up short today, and what does it mean to provide ‘flexible’ scheduling for nurse and provider staff?

This question captures a frustration we hear constantly. Traditional staffing has been built around reactive, transactional fills: a vacancy opens, a call goes out, an agency responds. That model was designed for a simpler time. Today, healthcare organizations are managing hybrid workforces across inpatient, outpatient, and virtual settings, often across multiple sites, with clinicians who expect flexibility as a baseline, not a benefit.

Flexibility today means something different than it did five years ago. It means giving providers visibility into open shifts through a mobile app. It means building internal float pools that get activated before reaching for expensive external labor. It means having the data to anticipate demand, not just react to it.

The staffing apps question came up directly too. A primary care manager at a large regional health system asked how organizations justify the ROI of shift self-election technology. The answer lies in what you’re replacing: the hours supervisors spend on emails and texts, the premium spend on last-minute fills, the turnover that comes from scheduling that doesn’t respect provider preferences. When you add that up, the ROI conversation becomes straightforward.

2. “How Do We Engage and Retain the Physicians We Already Have?”

Multiple questions pointed to the same underlying challenge: how do you get providers, especially physicians, to embrace new care models, take on different roles, or move where you need them most?

A system COO at a large multi-state health system asked whether organizations needed to restructure MD compensation to drive practice changes like weekend coverage or giving up administrative time. A rehabilitation services director at a community hospital system asked about tapping into educational pipelines as a retention strategy.

These questions share a common thread: retention and engagement are inseparable from how you design the work itself. Compensation matters, but so does scheduling autonomy, career development pathways, and whether clinicians feel like participants in a system or passengers on a conveyor belt.

The pipeline question is particularly forward-looking. Health systems that are building relationships with training programs aren’t just solving today’s vacancies. They’re building a more resilient workforce for the next decade.

3. “How Do We Extend Flexibility Across the Whole Organization?”

A director of advanced practice providers at a major academic medical center asked a question that doesn’t get enough airtime: How do you apply the same principles around flexibility to teams and providers who work inpatient and cover 24/7?

It’s easy to talk about flexibility in ambulatory settings. It’s harder, and more urgent, in the units that never close. The same strategic logic applies: data-driven scheduling, float pool infrastructure, and technology that gives leaders real-time visibility into coverage across all provider types. But the execution requires a different level of operational rigor.

A related challenge came from a federal VA medical center, where an attendee asked about the impact of virtual care expansion on wait times for primary care and mental health appointments. Telehealth has extended reach, but it hasn’t automatically extended capacity. Access expands only when workforce strategy evolves with the care model.

4. “What Do We Do About the Structural Barriers?”

Some of the most pointed questions in the room weren’t about culture or technology. They were about systems that simply don’t move fast enough. A regional ACHE chapter president raised a scenario many rural and independent systems know well: you can find a physician to fill a gap, but payer enrollment takes months, and you can’t bill in the interim. It’s a structural bottleneck that no amount of workforce optimization software can fix on its own. It requires coordination across credentialing, finance, and payer relationships, and a proactive strategy rather than a reactive scramble.

The Bigger Picture

Taken together, these questions paint a clear picture: healthcare leaders know what they need. Flexibility. Pipeline. Technology. Cross-functional coordination. What they’re asking for isn’t more vendors. It’s better integration. A strategy that connects the dots between internal staffing, contingent labor, scheduling technology, and long-term workforce planning.

That’s the shift from transactional to strategic. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen with a single solution. But it starts with asking the right questions, and sessions like ours at ACHE Congress give us confidence that the right people are asking them.

Venn Workforce Optimization partners with health systems to design holistic workforce strategies that reduce costs, improve coverage, and create sustainable pathways for patients and providers.