Only 39% of nurses plan to be in their current positions in 12 months due to a mix of burnout, mental health challenges and staffing issues, according to a new report from AMN Healthcare.
Nurses consistently said they need improvements in working conditions, such as fewer patients per nurse, hybrid roles and greater scheduling flexibility to sustain their passion and extend their careers.
Those are big challenges in the current healthcare environment. But the AMN research suggests that providers could adopt certain technologies – advanced scheduling systems, handheld devices – to empower nurses and better secure the future of nurse staffing.
"As the demand for nurses grows amid continued volatility in the workforce, healthcare administrators must look beyond recruitment and invest in sustainable solutions to help nurses rediscover the purpose that first brought them to the profession," said Robin Johnson, AMN's group president of nursing and allied solutions, in a statement.
WHY IT MATTERS
The good news is that when asked in AMN Healthcare’s 2025 Survey of Registered Nurses how likely they were to recommend others to become a nurse, 35% of those participating in the annual survey reported they were "very likely to."
That number had dipped sharply from 39% in 2019 to 23% in 2023, according to researchers from the healthcare staffing and talent firm.
"The number of nurses indicating they would recommend nursing as a career increased by 15 percentage points since 2023, and is back to previous levels after declining in 2023," they said in a statement on Monday.
While 75% of nurses reported being satisfied with their career choice and 49% said they feel valued by their employer, satisfaction ratings varied by level of training and by generation. For example, older nurses expressed a somewhat higher level of satisfaction than younger nurses, said researchers.
Nurses' satisfaction levels showed a slight increase from previous years after holding steady at 80-85% for a decade, but AMN said that the survey, with its 12,171 responses, revealed urgent workforce trends.
Not only did 58% of respondents report experiencing burnout on most days and 64% said they suffered from compassion fatigue, but 33% of nurses said they are eligible for retirement this year. Compassion fatigue works against satisfaction, researchers pointed out, because nurses say it impacts their health.
However, the majority of nurses – 55% – strongly agreed that flexible scheduling would help them prioritize time with family, and 81% said flexible schedules would improve their working conditions overall. Nearly half – 49% – said they believe that flexible work hours would encourage them to stay in the profession longer.
"It would reignite my passion to have a flexible schedule that would help balance my work and family life," one nurse reportedly said in the survey.
About a third of the nurse respondents – 34% – said they have access to self-scheduling options, and 33% said that they use a shift scheduling app.
"With the right strategies, healthcare systems can provide nurses with more schedule flexibility, a better work/life balance and more control over how, when and where they work – thereby improving the daily work experience of current nurses and attracting new nurses to the industry," Johnson said.
AMN's Nursing in Transition report offers other actionable insights, including the use of mentorship models, enhancement of financial incentives and the expansion of workplace violence prevention measures.
THE LARGER TREND
Morale has been an issue, with nursing shortages dating back more than a decade, compounding several factors that work against satisfaction, including technology. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, electronic health record (EHR) user mastery by nurses showed a particularly sharp decline, according to the Arch Collaborative.
Working through the pandemic resulted in 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession, with several factors, including administrative burdens, contributing to burnout. That was a notable change from KLAS' Nurse Burnout 2020 report, when EHR-related factors were among the surveyed nurses least frequently selected burnout causes.
Of note, the American Medical Informatics Association found after surveying 1,250 healthcare professionals, a quarter of whom were registered nurses, that daily documentation burden extends to patient care impacts. More than 77% of all respondents in AMIA's survey released last year said they regularly work after hours at home due to excessive administrative work, and that they believe it affects care quality.
While many of the nurse respondents in AMN's new survey – 45% – are concerned that artificial intelligence may affect patient safety, and 26% said they are concerned AI will replace them, there is much to be gained in designing AI to improve nursing, according to Mercy's Chief Nurse Executive Betty Jo Rocchio.
With an automated nurse-credentialing system, mobile-based charting and use of AI to improve emergency department handoffs across the health system's 51 hospitals, Rocchio said in September at the HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum that Mercy has succeeded in increasing nurse retention.
"Two years into this, it's still working great. … But to get to that point – a little bit of pain."
ON THE RECORD
"As a nurse myself, I know the importance of this data and the action we, as leaders, must take to address the concerns of our workforce," said Dr. Angelo Venditti, AMN's chief nursing executive, in a statement. "As we look to the future of nursing, we must prioritize the well-being of our professionals and prioritize flexible scheduling, workplace-enhancing technology and innovative staffing solutions."
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
