Nearly all hospital chief financial officers, 98%, say nurse staffing is a significant challenge for their health system, according to a report released by Nursa, a per diem nursing staffing platform. The report found that 86% of health systems had 10% or more of their nursing staff quit in 2023, even though 77% of CFOs indicated they increased the starting wages for nurses by at least 20% in the past two years.

“The perceived staffing shortage existed long before the pandemic, but the recent public health emergency added a significant amount of stress to an already weary nursing workforce,” Nursa CEO and Founder Curtis Anderson said in a press statement. “The survey findings highlight that health executives understand the complex layers leading to the crisis — nurse dissatisfaction, wages, large administrative workloads, etc. — but are employing reactive strategies that still don’t cover all gaps in frontline care staffing.”

Nursa also found that contract nurse volume more than doubled from 2019 to 2023, while 93% of health leaders do not believe nurses employed by a health system are more valuable than independent contractors.

According to the report, staffing challenges remain a top concern for health system executives, with an estimated shortage of 200,000 to 450,000 nurses in the US. The survey indicates that the issue is both immediate and long-term and will require a nimble solution to address foreseeably consistent staffing problems. While the majority of survey respondents agreed that there is no “magic bullet” to solving nursing staffing challenges, most felt that technology provides a pathway to improvement.

The survey was conducted by Eliciting Insights in late 2023 on behalf of Nursa and includes responses from 203 health system executives.