The ASHHRA Podcast

Healthcare runs on people. The ASHHRA Podcast is where the leaders responsible for those people come to think out loud. As the official podcast of ASHHRA (the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration), this show has built a library of 250+ episodes for one audience: the CHROs, CPOs, VPs, and directors leading the healthcare workforce. Every week, hosts Bo Brabo and Luke Carignan sit down with the executives doing the hard work inside hospitals and health systems. Past guests include leaders from AdventHealth, Universal Health Services, Advocate Health, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and UC Health. These are unscripted, practitioner-to-practitioner conversations about what actually works, what didn't, and what they'd do differently. WHAT WE COVER Workforce shortages and retention. Leader and caregiver burnout. Culture and identity. Labor relations. Total rewards and benefits strategy. AI and HR technology. Policy and regulatory shifts. The people decisions that shape patient care. TWO WAYS TO LISTEN The Weekly News Drop: the week's most important healthcare HR headlines, what they mean for your organization, and what to do about them on Monday morning. Guest Conversations: deep dives with the leaders solving real workforce problems right now. MEET YOUR HOSTS Bo Brabo is Vice President of People Solutions (Healthcare) at Lockton and a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer who served as a Soldier for ten years at the White House, including as a Presidential Communications Officer for two Presidents. Luke Carignan is Strategic Director of Healthcare at Phenom and brings the story behind the strategy. Together they're optimistic but honest, and warm but never soft. If you lead HR for a health system, shape workforce strategy, or influence culture anywhere in healthcare, this is your briefing. No theory. No fluff. Just leaders in the arena, sharing what they've learned. Subscribe, share it with your team, and join the conversation at ashhra.org.

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  Episode #49

  #256 - Yale Study: Ambient AI Cut Burnout 13 Points, Cleveland Clinic Apprentices Hit 95% Retention

  Sep 29, 202613 minS4

  Luke Carignan runs this one solo and flips the format. No crisis, no warnings. Three healthcare workforce stories that went right, and three things healthcare HR can act on because of them. Ambient AI Moved Burnout in 30 Days Yale researchers put an ambient AI scribe in front of 263 clinicians across six health systems. Burnout fell from 51.9% to 38.8% in a month. Cognitive load dropped, after-hours charting dropped, and clinicians reported more eye contact with patients. Action: Find out whether ambient scribing sits on your technology roadmap or in an IT queue as a physician preference item. The data makes it a workforce strategy. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2839542 165 Organizations Proved Culture Repeats Modern Healthcare's Best Places to Work list carried 165 honorees across every size and region. Guadalupe Regional Medical Center has made it eight years running, Peterson Health six, Unity Medical Center five. Employees have to say it in an independent survey. Key Takeaway: Community hospitals and specialty providers are on this list, so "we are too small" does not survive contact with the roster. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/165-top-places-to-work-in-healthcare-2026/ Cleveland Clinic Built the Pipeline Instead of Buying It Registered apprenticeships in pharmacy, EEG, ophthalmology and sleep medicine. Apprentice retention climbed from 75% to 95% in a single year, and the system beat its apprentice hiring goal by 50%. Healthcare apprenticeships are up 43% over five years, near 37,000 nationally. HR Risk: At roughly $60,000 to replace one bedside RN, every retention point you leave on the table is a budget line. https://consultqd.clevelandclinic.org/tips-to-bolster-apprenticeship-program-success This Week's 3 Mission-Critical Moves Put ambient scribing into the roadmap conversation. Ask your people what they would actually say in that survey. Name one thin-pipeline specialty and price out an apprenticeship. Luke's challenge lands harder than any of it. Find one person this week and tell them out loud what they do well. Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. AP3 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program. Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise. Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare. No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform. Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner. Take2 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by Take2 — the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare. Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that. Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role. Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform. Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started. Support the show

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  Episode #48

  #255 - OhioHealth Cut Time to Fill 42% in One Year: Noe Arceo's Four Knows of Healthcare Recruiting

  Sep 25, 202646 minS4

  Featuring Noe Arceo , Vice President of Talent Acquisition & Workforce Development, OhioHealth Noe Arceo calls the team he joined at OhioHealth a good team with good bones. His first year went into the parts of the hiring process they could control, and time to fill came down 42%. The method behind it fits on a single sheet of paper he has carried since his Baylor Scott & White days. The Four Knows Twenty years of healthcare recruiting compressed into four habits: know the business, know your pipeline, know the players, know your numbers. Miss one and you become an order taker. Run all four and you open the leader meeting with "we ran four interviews this week and three more are queued" instead of asking what's going on. Key Takeaway: The framework guides your style, it does not replace it. Culture DNA at OhioHealth The strategy OhioHealth calls Mission Mountain points at one North Star: the most trusted, easiest to use health system in the country, grounded in safety. Arceo turns that into empowering staff as moment makers, the Nordstrom and Chick-fil-A standard applied to a patient who could get the same MRI anywhere. Action: Stop running belonging work off the side of someone's desk. His team launched a Hispanic and Latino business resource group that drew 100+ people to its first event, then hired a dedicated quarterback so the next one runs clean. ️ The 212 Degree Rule Water at 211 degrees is hot. At 212 it boils. Arceo bought his whole team 212 The Extra Degree by Sam Parker and Mac Anderson because the ask is not more work, it is one more thing. One more candidate touchpoint builds trust. One written offer letter behind the verbal one keeps a start date from slipping. HR Risk: A candidate who starts late rarely finishes year one strong. Metrics create anxiety in a healthcare HR team before they create momentum. Arceo's answer borrows from Ted Lasso: staying stuck hurts more than blossoming does. *Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. AP3 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program. Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise. Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare. No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform. Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner. Take2 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by Take2 — the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare. Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that. Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role. Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform. Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started. Support the show

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  Episode #47

  #254 - Healthcare HR News, September 2026: NEJM on AI Jobs, 800 Facilities at Risk, 56 AI-Ready Workflows

  Sep 22, 202643 minS4

  Eight hundred hospitals, nursing homes, maternal wards, and psychiatric centers have already closed, cut services, or landed at risk. Not projected. Already happened. Three stories this week, and every one of them lands on an HR desk. NEJM: AI Grows the Clinical Workforce Dhruv Khullar of Weill Cornell Medicine published the counter-argument on September 12. Cheaper care means more care, not less work, and one critical failure at any stage still requires a human watching. If he is right, the shortage gets worse, not better. Action: build pipelines now, and stop assuming a four-year degree is the only on-ramp. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2607831 800 Facilities and the Medicaid Math The One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut $625 billion from Medicaid over ten years, with 16 million projected to lose coverage. The hardest part has not landed yet. In December 2026, states must implement work requirements, verifying 80 hours a month of qualifying activity every six months. Somebody processes all that paperwork. HR Risk: making workforce decisions on a guess about coverage you cannot confirm. Jeremy's read is to hold steady until the financial hit is real rather than cut ahead of it. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/medicaid-cuts-threaten-hundreds-hospitals-new-report-finds-rcna265789 ⚙️ 56 Workflows Ready for Agentic AI Right Now The deployment story is administrative, not clinical. Patient verification, scheduling, prior authorization, documentation, coding, billing. AWS launched a platform aimed straight at them, and more than 80% of healthcare executives expect real value this fiscal year, not in five. Aultman Health System in Ohio moved IT staff into auditor and strategist roles instead of cutting them. Key Takeaway: the same claim-denial logic runs faster with agents, so decide now what empathy looks like in an automated process. https://www.lisatmiller.com/agentic-health/ This Week's 3 Mission-Critical Moves - Ask your team which manual task eats the most of their week. Eight hours is 20% of a job, so five people doing it costs you a full headcount. - Name your own 56. Find the workflows where the time is spent waiting, not working. - Decide where the human stays, on purpose, before the workflow decides for you. The clinical AI story is still coming. The operational one already arrived. Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. AP3 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program. Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise. Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare. No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform. Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner. Take2 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by Take2 — the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare. Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that. Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role. Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform. Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started. Support the show

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  Episode #46

  #253 - Healthcare M&A Is Up 33% in 2026: Franciscan Health's Kellie Woods on Building the Pipeline First

  Sep 21, 202639 minS4

  Featuring Kellie Woods, Manager of Talent Acquisition, Franciscan Health Most people running talent acquisition at a large health system started at a large health system. Kellie Woods didn't. She spent years at two independent community hospitals in Northwest Indiana, watched both get absorbed, and now covers nursing, physician practices, home health and hospice across eleven hospitals with a team of seven. That path shows in how she reads what is coming. A Hospital Is a Small Community The boiler tech, the cook, the housekeeper, all of them move patient outcomes. Talent acquisition sits in that same line. Without hiring, there is no hospital. Key Takeaway: recruiters are not back office, they are the front end of patient care. Give the Hiring Manager Grace Kellie's team read Let Them together, and it changed how they handle slow approvals. The manager sitting on your interview guide may have just come off a code. Action: assume the best, then follow up anyway. Both things can be true. Growth Is Back, and This Time It Is a Choice Q2 2026 healthcare M&A is up 33 percent, and two of every three deals came from systems seeking partners rather than avoiding collapse. UHS paid $835 million for Talkspace. Freestanding EDs keep opening. HR Risk: TA hears about the strategy after the ink dries, then gets asked to staff it. Franciscan is building its own DO program in Crown Point to grow the physicians it cannot hire. Never Leave a Candidate on the Table Twenty-three years in, her best tip is the plainest one. Circle back. Keep a list of the people for whom the timing was wrong. Remember one or two things about them. They remember that you remembered. The pipeline gets built before the deal is announced, or it does not get built at all. Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode . AP3 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program. Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise. Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare. No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform. Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner. Take2 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by Take2 — the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare. Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that. Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role. Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform. Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started. Support the show

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  Episode #45

  #252 - Nurse Turnover Costs $61,000 per Replacement: Infirmary Health's Ivy Singley on Hiring in 2026

  Sep 18, 202641 minS4

  Featuring Ivy Singley, Director of Employment Services and Workforce Development, Infirmary Health Replacing one bedside nurse ran just over $61,000 last year. Every single percentage point of RN turnover swings the average hospital's bottom line by roughly $290,000 a year. Treating that as a pipeline problem misses what happens inside the walls every day, and Ivy Singley has spent almost 30 years in those walls. Retire the Word "Resilience" Naming resilience as a core trait tells candidates they will work in chaos. Boomers hear grit. This generation hears sunup to sundown and passes. HR Risk: your job postings may be screening out the people you most want. AI Belongs on the Front End, Not the Final Call Ivy uses AI for screening, sourcing, and executive summaries that let HR hold its own in a strategy conversation. She draws the line at choosing. A resume written by AI reads beautifully until the candidate cannot explain the procedure they claimed. Key Takeaway: screen with the tool, decide with a human. ⏱️ 95% of the Recruiting Cycle Is Waiting Luke reverse-engineered a system hiring 10,000 people a year with 20 recruiters. Screening to pre-boarding averages 18 days industry-wide, and only about 5% of that is actual work. The rest is a nurse applying at 10pm Saturday and nobody touching it until Monday. Action: attack the queue, not the headcount. No number of recruiters closes that gap. Same-Day, Multi-Layer Interviews Infirmary Health interviews with the hiring manager, runs a tour, and puts the candidate in front of a peer panel, often in one day. Candidates behave for the manager and open up with peers, and the hire becomes a collective decision instead of one manager's guess. Careers: infirmaryhealth.org/careers You cannot hire your way out of a waiting problem, and you cannot automate your way out of a judgment one. Enjoying the show? Subscribe to The ASHHRA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. AP3 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by AP3 — the ASHHRA Preferred Partner Program. Healthcare HR leaders are navigating rising costs, workforce shortages, and an overwhelming vendor landscape. AP3 cuts through the noise. Managed in collaboration with Lockton and backed by ASHHRA, AP3 is a governed ecosystem of vetted, healthcare-aligned solution providers across talent acquisition, benefits administration, workforce compliance, financial wellness, and employee engagement. Every partner is rigorously vetted. Every relationship is governed. Every solution is built for healthcare. No directories. No bidding wars. Just trusted partners proven to perform. Visit AP3.info to learn more and get connected with a partner. Take2 Sponsor Read This episode is brought to you by Take2 — a proud AP3 partner and the AI recruiting platform built specifically for healthcare. Hiring in healthcare is harder than ever — high-volume openings, hard-to-fill clinical roles, and recruiting teams stretched thin. Take2 changes that. Take2's AI agents automate the work that slows recruiters down — sourcing candidates, running outreach, screening and vetting applicants, scheduling interviews, and verifying licenses and certifications. It works around the clock, syncs directly into your ATS, and gives your recruiters hours back every week so they can focus on the people, not the process. From CNAs and EVS to RNs, APPs, and physicians, Take2 helps you hire faster across every role. Vetted through AP3. Built for healthcare. Proven to perform. Visit take2.ai/ashhra to learn more and get started. Support the show

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