Healthcare’s AI Obsession Is Missing the Point on Nursing Shortages

I was six years old when my sister was born, and I remember it vividly. In the hospital nursery, I saw rows of tiny newborns and nurses moving between isolettes with practiced precision. The moment stuck with me because years later, I found myself in the same environment. As a former NICU nurse at UCLA, I was caring for the city’s most vulnerable patients  — an experience that has continued to guide me throughout my nursing career and my life. 

As AI increasingly dominates our conversations around both healthcare strategy and everyday culture, I’ve realized that my years working nights, weekends, and holidays taught me something crucial: The work us nurses do at the bedside can’t be automated. When a newborn’s oxygen saturation drops unexpectedly, and a split-second clinical judgment has the potential to alter the course of someone’s life, we need real human experience and intuition.

Admittedly, artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare operations. Technology can free up time by automating straightforward but time-consuming tasks such as scribing and supporting clinical decision-making through early warning systems. When deployed thoughtfully, AI genuinely improves our ability as nurses to focus on patient care.

At the same time, many healthcare executives are betting heavily on AI to ease workforce pressures, a trend reflected in the more than 80% of health system leaders who expected generative AI to significantly impact their organizations in 2025. This hope is understandable because the need is great. The World Health Organization projects a global shortage of 11 million healthcare workers by 2030, with 4.5 million of those being nurses. One-third of nurses now report burnout severe enough to consider leaving the profession. With these staffing shortages top of mind, many organizations’ first instinct is to plug new AI tools into every function possible, hoping the technology will patch these ever-widening gaps.

But this approach misses a critical distinction. AI that supports nurses is fundamentally different from AI that replaces nurses. The core challenges facing bedside nursing can’t be automated. Strong nursing depends on years of hands-on experience that comes from being present with patients. No algorithm can hold a hand during a difficult diagnosis, reposition a post-surgical patient, or read the subtle cues that a family doesn’t understand a care plan. This is our irreplaceable work.

When AI creates new problems

The nursing profession’s skepticism about AI isn’t unfounded. National Nurses United found that 60% of nurses don’t trust their employers to prioritize patient safety when implementing AI. One in four healthcare workers worries about being replaced by AI, with nurses significantly more concerned than physicians.

In facilities using automated nurse handoffs, nearly half of nurses reported that these automated reports don’t match their assessment and omit critical details — information that wouldn’t be missed in nurse-to-nurse communication. Roughly two out of three nurses whose employers used AI-generated patient acuity measurements said the computer-generated measurement didn’t correspond with their assessment, because the AI failed to account for patients’ psychosocial or emotional needs.

The real crisis

The real problem behind the nursing shortage — and the issue that AI needs to address — is workforce sustainability.

Labor costs comprise over 50% of hospital operating budgets, with 96% of health system CFOs citing labor costs as their top margin pressure, and 99% pointing to nursing shortages as the root cause. The average cost to replace a bedside RN is $61,110, with each 1% change in RN turnover costing or saving the average hospital $289,000 annually.

A 2025 study found that nearly two-thirds of nurses experienced high levels of burnout. Insufficient pay, poor leadership support, and abuse from patients all contribute to a workplace environment that is stressful at best and unbearable at worst. 

I eventually transitioned away from the NICU to outpatient surgery, where I was promoted to director of nursing. When I left the NICU, it wasn’t because I stopped loving those tiny patients; it was because my body couldn’t function. I was working long night shifts, and construction jackhammers prevented me from catching up on sleep during the day. Thousands of nurses face similar impossible choices, missing their children’s school events because of mandatory overtime, developing chronic health issues from rotating shifts, or balancing inflexible scheduling with caregiving responsibilities at home. 

Nurses shouldn’t have to fear that their work will always take precedence over their personal lives. The outside life experiences nurses bring to the table are part of what empowers them to deliver empathetic care that helps their communities thrive. So what happens when nurses are no longer allowed to live their own lives? 

When CFOs mandate “eliminating contingent labor” to cut what appear to be higher upfront costs, hospitals lean harder on internal staff. Overtime shoots up, burnout increases, and turnover costs skyrocket. It becomes a vicious cycle: the cost savings from reducing flexible staffing get wiped out by turnover expenses that exceed the original investment. No amount of AI can fix this broken system, nor can it replace the human experiences that make nurses effective caregivers.

What actually works

We can’t solve the nursing shortage by replacing nurses with AI. But we can use AI to retain nurses in the profession. 

Flexible staffing models are one area ripe for technological innovation. Research consistently shows that work flexibility is a top priority for nurses, and per diem arrangements help nurses achieve work-life balance. Rather than viewing per diem staff as a last resort, hospitals should integrate them as part of their core workforce, ready when needed. The solution is technology that automates credentials verification, streamlines scheduling, and provides real-time workforce analytics, all freeing up time for nurses to provide compassionate patient care.

AI adoption is currently in an intriguing phase, but it’s still early. Despite frequent headlines suggesting that the world’s workforce is on the brink of being “replaced” by AI, the reality — especially in healthcare — is far less certain, and the technology still falls short in many regards. Our priority needs to be promoting technological fluency among our teams and leveraging AI where effective, but always keeping humans central to the process.

Meaning, healthcare leaders must resist using AI as a substitute for staffing. Instead, invest in workforce optimization technology that empowers nurses, creates flexible pathways, and addresses the systemic issues driving burnout.

That sense of awe I felt at six years old in the hospital nursery represents what we risk losing if we treat nursing as just another task to be replaced by AI. The future of healthcare is about using technology to help nurses thrive, not to automate them away.

Image from stock.xchng user ilco

Angie Nasr is the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) at Medely, a leading healthcare staffing platform that connects nurses and other healthcare professionals with flexible job opportunities. With a rich background in clinical nursing and healthcare management, Angie plays a crucial role in ensuring the quality and safety of care provided through Medely’s platform. Angie earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and later her Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). With over 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Angie has held various nursing and leadership positions, where she developed a deep understanding of the challenges faced by both healthcare professionals and facilities. Her hands-on experience in clinical settings, coupled with her leadership roles, has equipped her with the expertise to advocate for and support Medely’s network of healthcare professionals.

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