The ASHHRA Podcast · Episode 238
#238 - RN Staffing Report: The Numbers That Matter
July 14, 2026 · 44 min
Show Notes
$60,090 Per Nurse Exit, 3.35 Million Workers Finally Protected & Virtual Nursing Is Working
July 13th, 2026. Bo, Luke, and ASHHRA Executive Director Jeremy Sadlier cover three stories that all connect to the same question: are you doing everything you can to keep the people you have?
💰 The Number Your CFO Hasn't Modeled: $60,090
The NSI 2026 National Healthcare Retention and RN Staffing Report — 527 acute care hospitals, nearly a million workers — puts the cost to replace one staff RN at $60,090. National RN turnover is 17.6%, costing the average hospital $5.2 million annually. Every percentage point shift in turnover is worth $295,000. And 56.8% of all RN departures have less than two years of service.
Action: Bring $60,090 into your next budget conversation about retention. The ROI on almost any retention investment looks different at that baseline. Also: know how your health system makes money today. Ambulatory care is running 43% profit margins at some systems. Internal mobility toward high-margin service lines changes what you can invest everywhere else.
🧠 3.35 Million Healthcare Workers Can Now Seek Help Without Fear
The Dr. Lorna Breen Healthcare Provider Protection Act was reauthorized for five more years. As of May 27th, more than 3.35 million healthcare workers now practice in states or systems that removed stigmatizing mental health questions from licensure applications — 44 medical boards, 9 nursing boards, 11 pharmacy boards have made the change.
Action: Check your state's status at the Lorna Breen Foundation tracker and share it with your CMO and credentialing team. If EAP utilization and wellness participation are low, the upstream problem may be built into the credentialing system itself.
📺 Virtual Nursing Is No Longer an Experiment
The 2026 CNO Survey from Wolters Kluwer: nearly 9 in 10 nurse leaders have adopted new care models and 90% say they are working. Across 10 health systems at scale — including Advocate, Ochsner, Henry Ford, Piedmont, and UC Health — one 69-hospital system saved 43,000 nursing hours in a year. Patient experience improved as much as 80% at some sites. Nursing turnover reduction saved one system $6.3 million.
Action: If this conversation is already happening in your clinical or operational teams, HR needs to be at that table. Which roles you recruit for, how you compensate, and how you design career paths for nurses shifting to virtual roles — that is an HR design problem.
News Links Story 1 — NSI 2026 National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report Story 2 — Dr. Lorna Breen: Mental Health Licensing Milestone Story 3 — Virtual Nursing: What's Working
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