RefAssured SurroundSound · 2026
Healthcare Staffing
Trends Report
Agencies Tell All
Read the Report
Survey of 200+ healthcare staffing professionals · U.S.-based
200+
healthcare pros surveyed
84%
use reference checks
62%
cite wages as barrier
70%
distrust AI judgment
55%
feel negatively perceived
69%
flag comms breakdowns
Why should you read this?
Because it's based on quality data and pulls no punches. We surveyed more than 200 healthcare staffing agency frontline recruiters and owners/executives to get their perspective on the biggest challenges, strategic priorities, and digital transformation milestones that keep them up at night, including real talk about the relationship between healthcare staffing agencies and their hospital/facility clients. Fill out a quick gate and you're good to go.
Executive Summary
Key findings from the report
01
It's gotten easier to fill clinical roles in 2026
It's generally easier to fill roles now than it was last year, and both executives and recruiters are optimistic about what 2026 holds for them. While a small percentage feel that it will be harder to fill roles in 2026 than in the past two years, the general sentiment among healthcare staffing leaders is that we've turned the corner on this.
02
The biggest obstacle to hiring is compensation
The biggest challenge to filling roles is compensation misalignment (62%), with talent expecting higher pay rates than the bill rates will justify/allow. The second biggest challenge was too few qualified candidates (54%), which isn't surprising given the barriers to entry domestically for healthcare roles and the increasingly limited access to skilled international talent.
03
Artificial intelligence is very popular with executives but not as much with recruiters
Most respondents say that AI helps hiring in healthcare, but the enthusiasm for AI in the recruitment process varies widely between executives and frontline recruiters. The executives are considerably more enthusiastic about AI's role in hiring than the recruiters who work for them are. Across the board, respondents worry about the downstream impacts of disintermediating human beings from the placement lifecycle, with their biggest concern about AI being "the loss of human judgment" (70%), but recruiters are much more worried about this than executives are, and are also far more worried about AI accuracy than executives are.
04
Reference checks are how healthcare staffing agencies measure clinician quality
When asked what mechanisms they use to measure the quality of clinical talent, the overwhelming response was reference checks (84%), followed by certifications (76%). And 96% of respondents think that the vetting process they're using, be it reference checks or some other means, is working well, and that they have confidence it's surfacing quality talent.
05
Agencies' biggest frustration in working with healthcare facilities is communication
51% of respondents cited communication as a key challenge, followed by last-minute cancellations and bill rate pressure. Frustration with poor communication was particularly acute for executives, with 69% of them naming it as their top challenge with hospitals and facilities, versus just 52% of recruiters.
06
The majority of healthcare staffing executives think facilities view staffing agencies negatively
55% of executives felt that hospitals and facilities view staffing agencies negatively or very negatively, versus 40% of recruiters. Only 6.9% of executives think facilities have a positive view of agencies. And 0% of executives think the view is very positive, not a single one.
07
What agencies want from clients is the opportunity to build a long-term partnership, but it's not easy
When asked what they value most when working with their facility clients, 65% of respondents said long-term partnerships, followed by clear communication at 64%, fair bill rates at 45%, and respect for candidates at 42%. In open-ended responses around this same topic, agency executives and recruiters alike expressed frustration at the role of VMS and MSP involvement, and cited it as a major contributing factor to the communication and collaboration challenges between staffing agencies and hospitals.
Learn what your peers think the future holds for healthcare staffing
Fill out a quick gated form and get access to 25 pages of objective, thoughtful, honest trends analysis and real feedback from healthcare staffing executives and recruiters.
Read the Report
Get the Report
Read the Full Report
Discover where the staffing industry is headed in 2026 and beyond, with RefAssured's exclusive original trends research. Read the report today.