In this episode of Elevate Care Podcast, Nishan discusses the AMN Healthcare 2025 Nurse Survey Report Dr. Angelo Venditti. They discuss the state of nursing, tackling issues like burnout, workforce dynamics, and the need for flexible scheduling. The conversation also highlights workplace safety, societal expectations on healthcare workers, and the role of technology in enhancing nurse engagement and retention. Dr. Venditti shares his vision for a sustainable future in nursing and the steps needed to adapt to the evolving healthcare landscape.
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Dr. Angelo Venditti serves not only as a leader for clinical support of AMN caregivers but also as an strategic advisor to our clients for workforce solutions, market strategy, and clinical care delivery. Dr. Venditti has vast experience in workforce analytics and operational strategy, and he partners with health system executives to model solutions that are on the cutting edge of healthcare delivery and create transformative partnerships.
Prior to joining AMN Healthcare, he was the Executive Vice President, Patient Care Services, Chief Nurse Executive and Chief Patient Experience Officer for Temple Health in Philadelphia. In the CNE role, he oversaw nursing practice and clinical operations across the health system, including Temple University Hospital’s three campuses, all outpatient clinics, and Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Venditti has been a registered nurse for over 20 years and has held various leadership positions over his 15-year leadership career.
Dr. Venditti received his nursing degree from Luzerne County Community College. He holds a BSN and MBA from Misericordia University and a Doctorate in Nursing Practice from Carlow University. He holds certification as a Nurse Executive-Advanced and is designated as a Fellow by the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Connect with Dr. Venditti on LinkedIn
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (00:00.076)
Welcome to the Elevate Care Podcast Show. I'm Nishan Sivathasan your host for today's episode. Today we're going to be focused on the AMN Healthcare 2025 Nurse Survey Report. And I'm actually joined today by the esteemed Dr. Angelo Venditti. Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you. Appreciate you joining us. I'm really excited to dig into today's topic. We did a survey that was recently completed with about 12,000 nurses across the nation. Is that correct?
Yeah, we do this every other year at AMN since 2009. So we actually have a huge amount of data from this survey. It's really exciting every time we do this.
No, Before we dig into today's show, we'd love for you to share with our podcast listeners a little bit about yourself and your journey to your current role. So today, Dr. Venditti is our chief nursing executive here at Amon HealthCare. But I always think it's really interesting to hear about people's journey. So would you mind sharing yours?
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (00:58.548)
Sure. I got into healthcare at a pretty young age. I was 16 and started volunteering at a local volunteer fire company and became an EMT by the time I was 17. Got out of high school, went to paramedic school. As soon as I graduated paramedic school, I worked in the field as a full-time paramedic and went back to nursing school. And I started my career at Geisinger Health System where I spent 18 years.
Started out as a new grad in the ICU, learned a ton in rural Pennsylvania there, worked my way up. And when I left Geisinger, I was a regional CNO, which was, you know, just...
just a remarkable journey for me and learned so much at that organization. Also spent some time at Baptist Health in South Florida, in Miami, Florida, and then at Temple University Health System in Philadelphia where I was the executive vice president, chief nurse executive for the health system. it's a
Terrific. One of the things I really love about you being here as part of the organization is I always think you bring two very important critical lenses for us. One is the voice and perspective of the client, but two also more importantly, the perspective of the clinician. So you just do a really good job of that. You know, sometimes some organizations try to pretend, hey, pretend there's a client in room, right? But you are the client in room. So
That's why I'm just really looking forward to today's discussion specifically on this nurse survey report too.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (02:29.324)
Yeah, this is really important stuff. think we're at a major shift and I think some of the survey results we're going to talk about show that.
Yeah, absolutely. I think when you think about nurses in particular, to me, they're effectively the heartbeat of healthcare, right? And if you look at the survey responses, I think just thematically, it really focused on they're burned out. They're seeking more control and just more options, right? I think there's risk of folks leaving the workforce. So we're going to dig into some more of that today.
Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting when you go back 10 years ago and there was projections about what was going to happen with the nursing workforce, what you would see is the baby boomers are aging out and there's going to be this huge influx or wave of retirements. And I think some of the data will tell us otherwise.
Absolutely. So let's just jump in. I'm going to actually go through the first question I've got drafted here for you. So the survey revealed that 61 % of nurses plan to make a career change within 12 months. At the same time, 77 % of retirement eligible nurses said they'd consider staying longer if offered the right opportunity, especially one with adequate financial incentives. What does this tell us about how we need to rethink the workforce planning, especially for the experienced nurse?
Yeah, I think, you know, it's what I mentioned. If we would have looked back 10 years ago, we would have anticipated this huge wave of retirement. And what we're seeing now is the nurses nearing that retirement age are actually very willing to stay. If we create an environment that's enticing, rewarding, that is flexible, they're willing to stay with us. They're willing to do virtual care. They're willing to do mentorship. Although,
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (04:16.78)
When you look at the other demographics, nurses who are younger, less experienced, they're looking for flexibility too. And so you have this whole movement throughout the profession of they want flexibility, they want scheduling that works for them, they want a work environment that is safe, all things that seem reasonable. But we've found, I think over the years, it's a little harder to deliver. It's a little easier said than done.
Sure. It's interesting, you mentioned the big anticipation of the surge of retirements, right? And now many experienced nurses are saying, hey, we're willing to stay on longer provided you do ABC. Do you see some healthcare systems making movements or progress in that direction? And if you do, just what are they doing specifically that maybe stands out to you?
I do. I think that you're starting to see some movement related to 12-hour shifts. When I came out of school, 12-hour shifts were the holy grail. You wanted three 12s. You knew every other weekend, every other holiday was part of the commitment. And that's the way it was. Now you're starting to see organizations say,
It doesn't have to be 12-hour shifts. We're seeing burnout, fatigue. We know that the healthcare worker fatigue data tells us that even 12 hours is probably a little too long. so you're seeing a shift in shift length. You're also seeing technology introduced. So you're seeing some AI introduced for dictation software for documentation. And most notably, which gets big buzz, is virtual nursing.
where care is provided from an experienced nurse virtually, which is a really enticing setting.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (06:04.718)
Yeah, absolutely. You kind of hit on a couple of threads I'd like to maybe expand on a little bit more. So one is just new scheduling platforms and applications, right? So people want more control, but you actually see low adoption of these scheduling apps and platforms in the market today. Any thoughts on why the adoption is low? I think last I checked was about 30, 33%. And with the prevalence of AI, it's going to be used more and more and more.
just what are you seeing in things that are maybe hindering the adoption of these scheduling apps? So, know, maybe the nursing workforce has more control. And what are some things that could be done to, you know, expand adoption of these options?
Yeah, from my perspective, I think it's three things. I think, of course, the finances weigh into it. Do health systems have the money to invest? Secondly, do they have the resources to implement and really manage the systems at a level that they need to be? And third, I think there's a little bit of pumping the brakes to wait and see what's coming next and what's happening because these technologies are evolving so fast.
And so I think all three of those are credible. I also think as a healthcare system, we have to power through those and begin to implement them because our staff, not only nurses are asking for these technologies and in the here and now.
They're available and making a difference. There are health systems implementing these, seeing huge flexibility shifts and convenience for their staff. And on the fringe, they're saving money doing it.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (07:44.406)
Yeah. And along the way, they're actually keeping some of these nurses in the workforce longer too. Exactly. Right. So some of the ones that are more progressive in terms of adopting new, more flexible solutions broadly, whether it's shifts, whether it's virtual care or other forms, you know, I think I've shared or seen that they indicated higher engagement from their workforce as a result. And you talk about virtual care. One of the more interesting options I've seen there is where you're by the bedside.
you know, X number of days a week and then you give the virtual care option as a way to, you know, provide care or breaks maybe from the bedside stress. Is that something that you're seeing a little bit too or?
Absolutely, and those breaks are critically important. The beautiful part about the technology is you're still maintaining the expertise at the bedside. And so that opportunity to go back and forth between the virtual care setting and the bedside is a huge game changer for health systems. And it's a boost in patient safety. You've got another set of eyes on patients that you didn't have before.
Absolutely. So we've talked about control, flexibility, burnout, but there's also safety that was really highlighted too in the survey. Anything you can share about nurses' concern for safety, whether it's mental health, violence, kind of what you're seeing there and you know what changes are taking place in the workforce.
Yeah, there is a ton of movement in the workplace violence bucket. And really what we're seeing is health systems doubling down. There's a health system where I live that is now training and deploying a police department. They have a canine on staff. And so you are seeing health systems take this very seriously as they should. And
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (09:37.964)
You're seeing health systems really work to educate the nursing staff and make safety part of their culture. And I think that's really important. The staff in a hospital need to feel safe. They need to feel comfortable bringing up these opportunities for improvement related to safety. And I think we're starting to see that shift. I also think there's an acknowledgement at a state and federal level that this has to stop.
And so our tolerance is becoming much less.
Yeah, it almost feels just my perspective society in recent years almost questions and challenges expertise a little bit more than they did previously and it's surfacing in new and different ways, right? Violence either verbally, physically, which is just so incredibly unfortunate, right? any thoughts on maybe how that shifts or changes or what you're kind of keeping an eye on to?
just more from a macro perspective, right? So you can certainly take the preventative action and hey, have a police force, canine, so forth, but there's just like human behavior element too, right? So any thoughts on that?
Well, I think our society is evolving and, you know, our
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (10:48.386)
because we want immediate gratification for almost everything we expect that in healthcare and we expect answers and we expect service and delivery, all things that are reasonable. And how we set expectations with patients I think is changing. When you walk into hospitals and health systems now, it is not uncommon to see a sign that says, please be kind. And so we're setting the tone and expectations right at the door when people walk in.
And of course, unless it's an emergency, service is optional. And so we're seeing health systems say, hey, these are our expectations around kindness and humanity, and if you can't meet those, you can't get care here. So I think that's the right thing to do, and I think it's evolving rapidly.
Yeah. Some of the basic elements, right? Be smart, kind and thoughtful is really what you want out of every tree. Treat others as you want to be treated, right? Some of the basics that we learned back in elementary school. But if I go back to the scheduling piece a little bit, so you talked about, you know, financial investments and things of that sort. When you've engaged with other nurses in the profession for scheduling apps that they, you know, engage more deeply, more freely, just, is there something unique about how those
platforms are set up and structured that drive deeper, more meaningful engagement from the clinical workforce than others, just anything you're able to share there.
I think when you're talking about the ease of scheduling, everybody wants an app. Yeah.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (12:24.426)
And so functionality within an app, a scheduling app is of critical importance. And to be honest, a little bit of gamification doesn't hurt either. And so when you deliver that convenience, when you introduce AI tools that'll make recommendations to prevent burnout and fatigue in the scheduling process, when the system begins to learn the behavior of an individual nurse and make recommendations to them,
That's when we know we're making progress and those things are happening now.
Yeah, it's sort of, you know, what I'm hearing from you kind of thematically is personalization. Know me, know what I want and surface those recommendations to me. It's effectively sort of the, you know, the experiences everyone gets on their consumer apps, right? Is effectively what you want day to day on the professional setting. Exactly. Terrific. Um, as you reflect back on your career in your journey and you think about where we are today, just, you know, what are the things that give you hope for our future?
I see health systems really taking the workforce dynamic and paradigm very seriously. You are hearing much more conversation about healthcare worker wellness. You are hearing conversations about burnout, and they are taking action on them. That gives me hope. This survey and the feedback in the survey gives me hope.
People are looking for new tools to make things better. Nurses are willing to stay under the right conditions. These are all things that give us great optimism. It is up to us as leaders now to execute and deliver what they're asking for. I think it's also up to our nurses to make recommendations and be active participants in the solution as well. So those things give me hope.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (14:20.084)
I think we're in a great position moving forward to really make profound, sustainable improvements and really make a shift in the nursing workforce.
Terrific well thank you for joining us today doctor Vin. Awesome I hope you all enjoyed today's episode tune in next time for the next elevate care podcast.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (14:49.464)
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