The Guide: Your Glossary of Healthcare Workforce Management Terms

Essential recruitment terms for every healthcare staffing professional and job candidate

Terminology changes quickly in healthcare, and there’s always an ever-growing column of information to understand. Whether you’re new to the industry or have been in healthcare for years, having an up-to-date guide to the terms you should know keeps you well-informed and confident when communicating.

This glossary is designed for healthcare recruiting professionals and leaders, as well as job-seeking candidates, to give clear definitions for key terms.

Job types

Travel

A licensed healthcare professional who takes on temporary short-term assignments to fill temporary staffing needs at facilities across the country. Contracts typically last a few months.

Staff

Full-time medical professionals and support staff who work in a hospital, doctor’s office, or clinic. They provide direct care, preventative care, and education to patients.

Per diem

Meaning “by the day,” per diem nursing staff are local on-call workers hired to address unexpected staff shortages due to illnesses or increased patient needs. Per diem nurses are generally paid by the hour, without benefits.

Locum tenens

Locum tenens medical professionals fill temporary needs at healthcare facilities due to a permanent staff member’s vacation or leave, or to supplement full-time staff during periods of peak demand. They usually fill staffing gaps for a longer period.

Non-clinical roles

These are roles that support healthcare but do not provide direct patient treatment. They include administrative and support roles like secretaries, transport specialists, records technicians, biomedical techs, and managers.

Facility types

Hospital

An institution or facility that provides medical and surgical care for sick and injured individuals. Patients often require overnight stays for more intensive treatment.

Surgery center

A specialized facility that focuses on outpatient surgeries, in which patients can typically go home the same day of the procedure.

Long-term acute care

Long-term acute care centers focus on patients who require specialized intensive care that requires a longer hospital stay (often 25 days or more). Treatments include complex wound care and respiratory therapy.

The emergency room provides immediate treatment for severe injuries and illnesses that have sudden, serious symptoms or are potentially life-threatening.

Urgent Care

The urgent care provides immediate treatment for non-life threatening injuries and illnesses that need immediate care. X-rays and lab tests are often provided to diagnose injury and illness.

Private office

A private office is typically owned and operated by a physician, giving them more autonomy regarding patient care. A focus on the doctor-patient relationship allows physicians to help patients manage long-term health needs.

Workforce management

Workforce management is the processes an organization uses to make sure it has the right number of employees, with the right skills to fill its needs at any given time. Short and long-term planning ensures hospitals have the right mix of talent for current and future needs.

Talent pipeline

A healthcare organization’s strategy for nurturing qualified internal and external candidates who could be a good fit for future job openings. A strong talent pipeline can greatly streamline the hiring process.

Talent community

The healthcare organization’s broader network of healthcare professionals who have expressed interest in working there. This can include current and former applicants, as well as those who are not actively applying for a job.

Float pool

A flexible staffing model that has a team of nurses who can fill short-term needs across different units as needed. This helps healthcare systems save in comparison to bringing in external workers.

VMS

A vendor management system (VMS) is specialty software that can help organizations manage contingent workers (including in healthcare). This software aids with timesheet approvals, payments, contract management, and other tasks to ensure efficiency and compliance.

MSP

A managed service program (MSP) is a third-party service provider that manages specific tasks for healthcare organizations; most commonly the oversight of contingent workers. Working with an MSP can reduce hiring and onboarding costs, especially when temporary workers are needed.

Traveler premium

A premium above the standard base salary rate that is paid to travel nurses and physicians. Premium percentages can vary based on the urgency of the need or the specific skills required by the role.

Housing stipend

A fixed payment given to a traveling healthcare professional to cover their temporary housing costs. A stipend allows the traveling nurse or physician to choose their own housing.

Recruiting strategy

Staffing agency

A company that helps healthcare businesses find employees to fill open positions, including permanent and temporary roles.

Hiring manager

The hiring manager oversees recruiting for a specific job opening. In healthcare, hiring managers usually work with other professionals to define the responsibilities of the role, and aid with interviewing candidates, extending an offer, and making the final hiring decision.

Recruiter

An individual within a staffing agency who looks for qualified candidates for job openings, and helps evaluate applications from job applicants.

ATS

An applicant tracking system (ATS) help staffing agencies and hospitals manage and evaluate resumes, schedule interviews, and track applicants. A searchable database makes hiring more efficient and keeps talent from slipping through the cracks.

Candidate sourcing

The different strategies a hospital or its staffing partners might use to find job candidates, such as online job boards, referrals, or internal hires. Tracking candidate sourcing can help hospitals find the most effective hiring methods.

Hiring and recruitment KPIs

Submittal to interview rate

The ratio of candidates submitted by a recruiter that are brought in for an interview. A ratio of 3:1 or 5:1 indicates that recruiters are finding a good balance in screening out unqualified candidates without being too restrictive.

Interview to offer rate

A measurement of how many job offers are extended for each interview conducted. A higher rate usually means the hospital is attracting strong candidates who are a good fit for open roles.

Offer acceptance rate

The percentage of healthcare professionals who accept a job offer after it is extended. A high acceptance rate indicates the employer provides a good candidate experience, has a positive reputation, and is making competitive offers.

Time to fill

The amount of time from when a job listing is posted (or internally approved) to when a candidate accepts a job offer. This is a good measurement of the efficiency of a healthcare organization’s recruiting process.

Time to hire

The amount of time from when a candidate applies for a job to when they accept the offer. A faster time to hire indicates a streamlined hiring process that makes qualified candidates more likely to accept job offers.

Cost per hire

The average cost for a healthcare organization to hire a new employee. This number is usually calculated by dividing total recruiting costs by the number of hires made during a specific period.

Cost per applicant

This is calculated by dividing total recruiting costs by the number of applications a healthcare organization receives during a set timeframe. A lower cost per applicant shows your organization is effectively attracting applicants.

StaffDNA

StaffDNA^(R)

StaffDNA provides automated AI matching based on a candidate’s profile, qualifications, and preferences. This efficient system makes it easy to fill clinical openings in a cost-effective way, especially for per diem, travel, and locum tenens positions.

DNAVault^TM

StaffDNA’s secure platform for storing, sharing, and managing key credentials, including licenses, certifications, and ID cards. DNAVault enables faster compliance requests during hiring.

DNAInsights^TM

DNAInsights provides up-to-date market rates for healthcare roles and locations so healthcare organizations can adjust pay rates to be more competitive in the market.

StaffDNA’s My Rate^TM

StaffDNA’s proprietary pay and benefits calculator that lets healthcare job applicants determine a role’s hourly wages, take-home pay, housing stipends, and travel allowances to find good-paying opportunities.

Lisa Dawson

Healthcare organizations face some of the toughest workforce challenges: tight budgets, lean IT teams and limited tools for sourcing, hiring and onboarding staff. Add in manual scheduling, rising labor costs and high burnout, and the pressure grows. Rolling out complex systems can feel out of reach without dedicated tech support. Even simply evaluating new technology can overwhelm already stretched-thin teams.

These challenges make it clear that technology isn’t just helpful; it’s essential for healthcare organizations. Especially when they’re striving to do more with less. Not only are healthcare organizations falling short on implementing new technology, but they’re struggling to update outdated systems. A 2023 CHIME survey found that nearly 60% of hospitals use core IT systems, such as EHRs and workforce platforms, that are over a decade old. Outdated tools can’t integrate or scale, creating barriers to smarter staffing strategies. But the opportunity to modernize is real and urgent.

Tech in Patient Care Falls Short

In healthcare, technology has historically focused on clinical and patient care. Workforce management tools have taken a back seat to updating patient care systems. Yet many big tech companies have failed when it comes to customizing healthcare infrastructure and connecting patients with providers. Google Health shuttered after only three years, and Amazon’s Haven Health was intended to disrupt healthcare and health insurance but disbanded three years later.

Why the failures? It’s estimated that nearly 80% of patient data technology systems must use to create alignment is unstructured and trapped in data silos. Integration issues naturally form when there’s a lack of cohesive data that systems can share and use. Privacy considerations surrounding patient data are a challenge, as well. Across the healthcare continuum, federal and state healthcare data laws hinder how seamlessly technology can integrate with existing systems.

Why Smarter Staffing Is Now Essential

These data and integration challenges also hinder a healthcare organization’s ability to hire and deploy staff, an urgent healthcare priority. The U.S. will face a shortfall of over 3.2 million healthcare workers by 2026. At the same time, aging populations and rising chronic conditions are straining teams already stretched thin.

Smart workforce technology is becoming not just helpful, but essential. It allows organizations to move from reactive staffing to proactive workforce planning that can adapt to real-world care demands.

Global Inspiration: Japan’s AI-Driven Workforce Model

Healthcare staffing shortages aren’t just a U.S. problem. So, how are other countries addressing this issue? Countries like Japan are demonstrating what’s possible when technology is utilized not just to supplement staff, but to transform the entire workforce model. With one of the world’s oldest populations and a significant clinician shortage, Japan has adopted a proactive approach through its Healthcare AI and Robotics Center, where several institutions like Waseda University and Tokyo’s Cancer Institute Hospital are focusing on developing AI-powered hospitals.

Japan’s focus on integrating predictive analytics, robotics and data-driven scheduling across elder care and hospital systems is a response to its aging population and workforce shortages. From robotic assistants to AI-supported shift planning, Japan’s futuristic model proves that holistic tech integration, not piecemeal upgrades, creates sustainable staffing frameworks.

Rather than treating workforce tech as an IT patch for broken systems, Japan’s approach embeds these tools throughout care operations, supporting scheduling, monitoring, compliance and even direct caregiving tasks. U.S. health systems can draw critical lessons here: strategic investment in integrated platforms builds resilience, especially in a labor-constrained future.

The Power of Smart Workforce Technology

In the U.S., workforce management is becoming increasingly seen as more than a back-office function; it’s a strategic business operation directly impacting clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Smart technology tools are designed to improve care quality, staff satisfaction, scheduling, pay rates, compliance and much more.

For example, by using historical data, patient acuity, seasonal trends and other data points, organizations can predict their staff needs more accurately. The result is fewer gaps in scheduling, fewer overtime payouts and a flexible schedule for staff. AI-powered analytics can help healthcare leadership teams spot patterns in absenteeism, see productivity and forecast needs in multiple clinical areas in real-time. Workforce management tools can help plan scheduling proactively, rather than reactively. It’s a proven technology tool that can help drive efficiency and reduce costs.

Why So Many Are Still Behind

Despite the clear benefits, many healthcare organizations are slow to adopt smart tools that empower their workforce. Several things are holding them back from going all-in on technology:

Financial Pressures

Over half of U.S. hospitals are operating at or below break-even margins. For them, investing in new technology solutions is financially unfeasible. Scalable, subscription-based and even free workforce management tools are available, but most organizations are unaware of or lack the resources to source these products. Workforce management tools can deliver long-term return on investment for most organizations. Taking the time to understand where the value lies and which tools to invest in needs to happen.

Outdated Core Systems

Many facilities still depend on legacy technology infrastructure that lacks real-time capabilities. Many large players in the healthcare workforce management industry dominate hospital systems. Other smaller, real-time tools that offer innovative solutions to scheduling, workforce hiring, rate calculators and more are available at a fraction of the cost.

Competing Priorities and Strategic Blind Spots

Healthcare organizations and hospitals have many high-priority business objectives and regulatory demands. Digital transformation naturally falls down on the priority list, which causes them to miss improvements that can lead to long-term stability. With patient care and provider satisfaction at the top of the priority mountain, technology changes can be easily missed or shoved to the side when other business objectives are perceived to “move the needle” more.

Poor Change Management

Even the best technology efforts can fail without the right strategy for adoption and support from senior leadership. Resistance from staff, lack of training, or poor rollout communication can undermine success. Effective change management—clear leadership, role-based training and feedback loops—is essential.

Faster than the speed of technology

Change needs to come quickly to healthcare organizations in terms of managing their workforce efficiently. Smart technologies like predictive analytics, AI-assisted scheduling and mobile platforms will define this next era. These tools don’t just optimize operations but empower workers and elevate care quality.

Slow technology adoption continues to hold back the full potential of the healthcare ecosystem. Japan again offers a clear example: they had one of the slowest adoption rates of remote workers (19% of companies offered remote work) in 2019. Within just three weeks of the crisis, their remote work population doubled (49%), proving that technological transformation can happen fast when urgency strikes. The lesson is clear: healthcare organizations need to modernize faster for the sake of their workforce and the patients who rely on providers to deliver care.