From hospitals and clinics to doctors' offices and urgent care centers, healthcare executives and clinicians agree: staffing shortages directly compromise their ability to provide high-quality care to patients. As the American healthcare staffing gap grows, patient care inevitably suffers.

Based on data from more than 1,300 healthcare clinicians and 160 healthcare executives, Covista's Care Capacity Monitor research found that the talent shortage has escalated from a staffing issue to a patient care quality crisis.

Key numbers: Over the past year, employers faced 8.4 million open healthcare jobs, translating to roughly 702,000 vacancies posted every month. Yet, an average of only 306,000 unemployed healthcare workers exist to fill them.

• This deficit means that for every available job seeker, more than two openings sit empty. With fewer clinicians, 50% of healthcare executives report they have little choice but to scale back the care they provide to patients, at least moderately or significantly.

The landscape: While this challenge spans the entire geography of care, it is particularly acute for the frontline positions hardest to fill: primary care physicians, physician specialists and the critical technician roles anchoring daily clinical operations.

• The strain falls heaviest on rural communities with fewer than 1 million residents and historically underserved areas where continuity of care and healthcare access are already fragile.
• Covista's Care Capacity Monitor shows that 85% of healthcare executives in rural and less urban settings cite a lack of local talent as a major hiring barrier, compared to 45% in major cities. For these communities, reduced staffing capacity translates directly to delayed treatment, longer wait times and vital care moving entirely out of reach.
• Employers are aggressively competing on compensation, offering a 48% pay premium on advertised roles relative to the median salary of current workers, yet critical clinical positions remain open. Traditional recruitment tactics simply move the same finite pool of professionals around without creating the new talent pipelines the ecosystem needs.

• According to data collected by West Health and Gallup, one out of five Americans believe the U.S. healthcare system is in a state of crisis, which is the highest level of public concern recorded in 30 years.

An expert take: Industry executives see little hope on the immediate horizon: Only 18% believe there is enough talent to meet current needs, and that baseline drops to just 14% when looking five years ahead. The data proves that the workforce gap has become a full-scale patient care quality crisis. Because traditional approaches only tackle short-term symptoms rather than the foundational supply, the industry requires completely new models for cultivating talent.

Here's what else: This is where the crisis meets the core design of higher education. Over the last decade, public confidence in traditional higher education has plummeted from 57% to 36%. As Steve Beard, Chairman and CEO of Covista, pointed out:

• "A system built around a 4.2% acceptance rate was never designed to educate at the scale the country needs. Different parts of the ecosystem serve different purposes."

The solution: To fix a system broken by design, the education sector must change how it measures value, shifting from who it admits to what it delivers. As America's largest healthcare educator, Covista serves more than 100,000 students as of June 2026 across five accredited institutions, including the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, Chamberlain University, Ross University School of Medicine, Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and Walden University.

Covista (formerly Adtalem Global Education) is stepping into this gap to build transparent, accessible pathways to economic mobility and clinical readiness at scale. Nowhere is that pathway more visible right now than in Cincinnati, where Chamberlain University is opening its 25th campus.

Expanding access: why Cincinnati

The expansion lands inside a high-demand market: Ohio records nearly 50,000 healthcare vacancies every month, and in Greater Cincinnati alone, six open healthcare jobs actively compete for every single healthcare graduate.

Addressing that kind of structural supply constraint requires expanding access for the non-traditional students traditional higher education leaves behind. The legacy model assumes a young student with no external work or family obligations. But working adults, single parents, career changers, veterans and people who live in rural areas an hour away from their local university are the exact student population an effective system must target.

Chamberlain University, the nation's largest school of nursing and a Covista institution, announced plans to open 10 to 15 new campuses over the next three years, including the new Cincinnati campus, among the first to open as part of the institution's national expansion strategy. By removing historical barriers to entry—offering flexible evening and weekend options, eliminating application fees, requiring no prerequisite courses and mapping out a direct three-year path to a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN)—the institution expands the regional talent supply.

The Covista Care Capacity Monitor also found that 69% of healthcare executives say education pipeline partnerships are the most effective strategy for meeting healthcare workforce needs, yet only 22% significantly invest in them.

Investing in a healthcare workforce across the continuum

A new campus solves today's supply gap. Closing tomorrow's gap starts even earlier. Solving the healthcare workforce shortage means inspiring more young people to pursue healthcare careers, helping students overcome the barriers that prevent them from graduating and supporting the mental health of the professionals already caring for patients.

Through complementary investments by Covista and the Covista Foundation, the organizations will direct $10 million and 50,000 volunteer hours over the next five years.

Here's what else: Young people are not choosing healthcare careers at the rate America needs them to, and Covista is working to change that by partnering with the National Academy Foundation, a national leader in career-connected education.

• NAF is expanding access to real-world learning opportunities for high school students in Washington D.C., Dallas, Raleigh and Los Angeles with mentors, healthcare professionals and hands-on career exploration.
• For the working parents, first-generation students and career changers who make up so much of America's future healthcare workforce, Covista launched the Covista Foundation's Student Emergency Care Fund to help students facing unexpected hardships.
• Additionally, Covista is supporting organizations including the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation, the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare and ALL IN: Wellbeing First for Healthcare to reduce burnout and expand mental health resources for clinicians.

The takeaway

Healthcare leaders know workforce challenges can't be solved by health systems alone. Closing the gap starts with stronger educational pathways that prepare students for today's realities.

The goal: Covista is helping build that foundation by expanding access to education and creating clearer pathways from the classroom to the communities that need skilled healthcare professionals. From new nursing campuses in Cincinnati to nonprofit partners across the country, Covista is meeting the healthcare workforce shortage where it starts.

Learn more about Covista's role in solving the healthcare workforce shortage in America.