How AI Training Can Address Health Care's Workforce Crisis

Part 1: Investing in People, Not Replacing Them.

Every emergency manager knows the drill: when a crisis hits, you work with the team you have, not the team you wish you had. But what happens when the crisis is the team itself?

Health care is facing a workforce shortage threat that shows few signs of letting up. The Association of American Medical Colleges anticipates a shortage of over 85,000 physicians by 2036, while other projections suggest we'll be short up to 3.2 million health care workers by 2026.

Even nursing assistants, the backbone of daily patient care, face projected shortages of about 73,000 by 2028. This isn't just a recruitment problem. It's a retention crisis that affects every aspect of hospital operations, from patient care quality to emergency preparedness.

Into this landscape comes artificial intelligence (AI), often framed as either our salvation or our doom.

In this two-part series, I’ll highlight what this technology could mean for your teams (and what it won’t), and a potential path forward.

Anxiety Is Real (And Understandable)

Some see AI as a way to patch holes left by vacant positions. Others fear it signals the beginning of the end for health care jobs.

But there's a third way that too few organizations are discussing: What if we invested in training our people to work alongside AI, rather than using technology to work around our staffing gaps?

The data suggests this approach isn't just good for morale; it might be our best shot at solving the workforce crisis altogether.

Health care workers are tired. They've weathered a pandemic, faced unprecedented burnout, and now they must confront AI. The anxiety around job displacement isn't paranoia; it's a reasonable response to rapid technological change in an already stressful environment.

But here's what's changed: health care workers themselves are becoming less worried. In 2024, 64 percent of nurses believed AI would negatively impact their roles. By 2025, that number dropped to just 38 percent. What happened in those twelve months? Exposure. Experience. And most importantly, evidence that AI tends to eliminate the parts of the job people hate (not the jobs themselves).

The most common fear is that hospitals will deploy AI to do more with fewer people. And if that's the approach an organization takes, that fear is justified. But the hospitals that are getting this right aren't using AI as a substitute for human beings. They're using it to give skilled professionals their time back.

Training as a Retention Strategy

Here's something emergency managers understand better than most: You can't surge capacity if you don't have baseline capacity. You can't respond to a crisis with a team that's already depleted, demoralized, and looking for the nearest exit.

The research on retention is clear. Organizations that provide learning opportunities report it as their top strategy for keeping talent, with 90 percent of organizations focused on retention prioritizing professional development.

Companies that invest specifically in AI upskilling report that 58 percent have seen increased retention rates. This makes intuitive sense, because people want to grow, not stagnate. They want to feel like their organization is investing in their future, not just extracting value from their present.

Consider what this looks like on the ground. Nurses who receive training on AI-assisted documentation tools don’t just learn a new piece of software. They can gain time—time that was previously consumed by redundant charting, searching for information across disconnected systems, and administrative tasks that pulled them away from patients. That time translates to better work-life balance, reduced burnout, and frankly, the ability to remember why they became nurses in the first place.

When those nurses’ friends ask about job openings at their hospital, they don't just talk about pay or benefits. They talk about working for an organization that values them enough to keep their skills current, that sees them as people worth investing in, that gives them tools to do their jobs better rather than just asking them to do more.

That's your recruitment strategy right there. Investing in tools to help your teams puts you on a sustainable trajectory for success.

Check back for Part 2 where we will discuss the business case for this technology and a path forward.

For more information, contact Tom Kitchen, Jr., MECM, manager, emergency management.