Survey of 500+ healthcare leaders shows today’s workforce strategy is driven by unified data, real-time visibility, and AI transforming insight into action.
BOCA RATON, FL, UNITED STATES, February 25, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (Nasdaq: CCRN), a technology-driven healthcare workforce solutions company, today released its 2026 Healthcare Workforce Outlook, a workforce trends study based on a survey of more than 500 healthcare leaders across the country.
The message from healthcare leaders is clear: rising labor costs, combined with retention pressure and clinician burnout, are creating a planning and operating model problem for health systems. Leaders are moving beyond one-off fixes and prioritizing unified workforce technology and AI-enabled forecasting to improve labor utilization, reduce premium labor reliance, and make faster, smarter workforce decisions across the entire labor ecosystem.
The report also reinforces a hard reality: cost pressure is now the norm. Healthcare leaders are planning for sustained labor cost increases and looking for better tools to forecast demand earlier, optimize deployment, and improve cost efficiency without compromising quality.
Key findings from the 2026 Healthcare Workforce Outlook
– Rising labor costs are expected to continue: Seven in 10 healthcare leaders expect labor costs to rise.
– Retention and burnout remain major operational risks: Leaders continue to cite retention and burnout as top workforce pressures impacting stability and performance.
– Flexibility is now an operating requirement: Leaders describe workforce flexibility as “not optional” as they navigate tighter margins and persistent shortages.
– Leaders want AI and analytics that drive action: Many report visibility gaps tied to disconnected systems, scheduling complexity, and data that exists, but does not translate into faster decisions or better utilization.
“Healthcare workforce strategy has entered a new era,” said Kevin C. Clark, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cross Country Healthcare. “This is no longer a short-term staffing problem. It’s an operating model problem. Health systems need a unified view of their labor ecosystem, and they need AI that can forecast demand, optimize deployment, and help leaders make faster, smarter decisions that protect quality and reduce unnecessary cost.”
Today, many health systems are trying to manage workforce decisions across disconnected tools, siloed labor data, and inconsistent processes. That fragmentation creates blind spots, slows decisions, and pushes teams into reactive staffing, often at a higher cost and with greater strain on clinicians. The path forward is unifying workforce technology and applying AI to turn real-time visibility into action: forecasting demand earlier, improving labor utilization, reducing avoidable premium spend, and supporting a more sustainable staffing model.
Cross Country’s 2026 outlook highlights the practical moves health systems are prioritizing heading into 2026, including:
– Unifying workforce technology to reduce fragmentation across internal and contingent labor workflows and create a single, reliable source of workforce truth
– Using AI-enabled forecasting to anticipate demand earlier, reduce last-minute staffing, and improve labor utilization and labor mix decisions
– Reducing scheduling friction that drives burnout, premium labor spend, and avoidable operational disruption
– Strengthening internal resource pools and flexible labor models to improve coverage and resiliency without over-relying on high-cost options
– Aligning finance, operations, HR, and clinical leaders around shared workforce measures that connect utilization, cost efficiency, and quality outcomes
Report availability
The 2026 Healthcare Workforce Outlook is available now. To download the report and request a workforce strategy consult, click here.
About Cross Country Healthcare
Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (Nasdaq: CCRN), is a technology-driven healthcare workforce solutions company, delivering an AI-powered digital platform and advisory services backed by 40 years of healthcare labor expertise to help health systems optimize and sustain their entire labor ecosystem.
Through Intellify®, its cloud-based workforce and vendor management platform designed to integrate with core hospital systems, Cross Country helps improve transparency across the labor ecosystem. Intellify® unifies workforce management across service lines, including non-clinical, nursing, allied health, and locums, into a single, centralized view of internal and contingent labor. Powered by real-time analytics and AI-driven insights, the platform helps leaders forecast demand, optimize labor utilization, streamline workflows, and improve cost efficiency while supporting high-quality care delivery.
Karen Varga-Sinka
Cross Country Healthcare
+1 (561) 998-2232
kvargasinka@crosscountry.com
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