CHG Healthcare Report: 92% of Healthcare Leaders Call APPs Essential to Workforce Strategy

NewsData.io · United States · Aug 3, 2026

CHG Healthcare's 2026 Advanced Practice Provider Workforce Trends Report, based on a Q4 2025 survey of 327 facility leaders, finds that 92% rate APPs—including NPs, PAs, and CRNAs—as 'very' or 'extremely' important to workforce strategy, up from 89% the prior year. Nearly all facilities (97%) plan to maintain or grow APP utilization in 2026, signaling a structural shift from emergency staffing gap-fill to core workforce infrastructure. CRNAs remain the hardest APP role to fill nationally (30%), rising to 49% in rural markets. A geographic split is emerging in locum tenens usage: urban systems are expanding APP locums while rural facilities—despite highest strategic reliance on APPs—are cutting locums due to budget constraints.