The Committee for Economic Development (CED), the public policy center of The Conference Board, hosted the Health Care Workforce Policy Summit on March 25, 2026. The Summit was held in partnership with the Covista Foundation, Northwell Health, and Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies. A viable health care workforce is essential to access, quality, and long-term economic competitiveness. Too often, health care workforce capacity now shapes whether health systems can maintain services, whether patients can get timely care, and whether employers and public programs can manage growing health care costs. Bringing together leaders from health systems, business, academia, and public policy to examine how the United States can build and sustain a workforce capable of meeting rising demand for care, the Summit focused on developing solutions.
The discussion also sharpened how the workforce problem should be defined. Participants described a persistent gap between rising demand for care and the system’s ability to supply enough workers, skills, and service capacity to meet it. That gap reflects more than headcount. It also reflects constrained training capacity, uneven geographic distribution, barriers to entry, burnout and attrition, administrative burden, and payment and regulatory structures that make it harder to redesign care around teams and prevention.
Summit speakers highlighted solutions in several broad areas:
- Expand and diversify education and workforce pathways. Participants pointed to earlier exposure to health careers, stronger partnerships between employers and educators, apprenticeships, service-linked training models, and other nontraditional pathways designed to make careers in health care attractive and attainable. They also emphasized the need to expand educational opportunities so future workers can begin careers, widen entry into the field, and better align training with workforce demand.
- Strengthen transitions from training into practice. Participants emphasized the need for easier transitions into employment, including service-linked training and other models that connect learning more directly to job placement in high-need roles and communities.
- Improve retention and job quality. Speakers emphasized the importance of culture, mission, onboarding, mentorship, and job design in strengthening workforce stability, building a culture of continuous education, and reducing burnout and exit to competing careers. Consistent, open communication between leadership and frontline staff is essential in building trust and sustaining engagement.
- Use technology to expand effective capacity. Digital tools and artificial intelligence are potential sources of relief for a strained workforce to reduce documentation burden, improve information flow, and help clinicians practice at the top of their license. Implementation of technology solutions must preserve human judgment, accountability, and trust.
For CED, the Summit reinforced both the urgency of the issue and the value of sustained business leadership. CED is well positioned to carry these insights forward by continuing to convene business leaders, providers, educators, and policymakers around practical reforms that can strengthen workforce pathways, improve retention, and support more effective care delivery. CED will continue to work to keep the health care workforce on the policy agenda for action to support a better health care system and a more competitive US economy.
The Committee for Economic Development (CED), the public policy center of The Conference Board, hosted the Health Care Workforce Policy Summit on March 25, 2026. The Summit was held in partnership with the Covista Foundation, Northwell Health, and Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies. A viable health care workforce is essential to access, quality, and long-term economic competitiveness. Too often, health care workforce capacity now shapes whether health systems can maintain services, whether patients can get timely care, and whether employers and public programs can manage growing health care costs. Bringing together leaders from health systems, business, academia, and public policy to examine how the United States can build and sustain a workforce capable of meeting rising demand for care, the Summit focused on developing solutions.
The discussion also sharpened how the workforce problem should be defined. Participants described a persistent gap between rising demand for care and the system’s ability to supply enough workers, skills, and service capacity to meet it. That gap reflects more than headcount. It also reflects constrained training capacity, uneven geographic distribution, barriers to entry, burnout and attrition, administrative burden, and payment and regulatory structures that make it harder to redesign care around teams and prevention.
Summit speakers highlighted solutions in several broad areas:
- Expand and diversify education and workforce pathways. Participants pointed to earlier exposure to health careers, stronger partnerships between employers and educators, apprenticeships, service-linked training models, and other nontraditional pathways designed to make careers in health care attractive and attainable. They also emphasized the need to expand educational opportunities so future workers can begin careers, widen entry into the field, and better align training with workforce demand.
- Strengthen transitions from training into practice. Participants emphasized the need for easier transitions into employment, including service-linked training and other models that connect learning more directly to job placement in high-need roles and communities.
- Improve retention and job quality. Speakers emphasized the importance of culture, mission, onboarding, mentorship, and job design in strengthening workforce stability, building a culture of continuous education, and reducing burnout and exit to competing careers. Consistent, open communication between leadership and frontline staff is essential in building trust and sustaining engagement.
- Use technology to expand effective capacity. Digital tools and artificial intelligence are potential sources of relief for a strained workforce to reduce documentation burden, improve information flow, and help clinicians practice at the top of their license. Implementation of technology solutions must preserve human judgment, accountability, and trust.
For CED, the Summit reinforced both the urgency of the issue and the value of sustained business leadership. CED is well positioned to carry these insights forward by continuing to convene business leaders, providers, educators, and policymakers around practical reforms that can strengthen workforce pathways, improve retention, and support more effective care delivery. CED will continue to work to keep the health care workforce on the policy agenda for action to support a better health care system and a more competitive US economy.
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