Best Hospital Staffing Companies in 2026: 4 Top Picks Compared

Hospital staffing companies compared

This guide compares staffing options for hospital buyers. For a broader comparison, see Clipboard’s guide to healthcare staffing platforms.

How these picks were chosen

The four lead picks are grouped by coverage need, not ranked against each other. Each one answers a different version of the same question: how does a hospital fill a single open shift quickly, with a qualified local professional?

Each company was assessed on the same five points, using its own published hospital offering:

• Coverage and workforce model: which roles it covers, and whether clinicians are W-2 employees or independent professionals.
• Pricing and commitment: how rates are set, what fees apply and whether a minimum spend or contract is required.
• Credentialing: what the company verifies, and how hospitals see and audit those records.
• Continuity: tools for bringing back professionals who already know the unit.
• Internal workforce tools: support for float pools and internal staff before outside labor is used.

Performance figures below are company-reported and keep the scope each company gives them.

1. Clipboard: best for per diem at short notice

What it is. Clipboard connects hospitals with qualified local professionals through its marketplace. According to the company, more than 6,500 facilities and one million healthcare professionals across the United States use its platform.

A hospital posts the role, date and time of an open shift. Clipboard then shares it with professionals whose qualifications match. Credentials, scheduling, documentation and payment sit in one platform.

For longer gaps, a hospital can post a run of dates as a travel assignment. There’s no 13-week term contract, the nurse arranges their own housing, and the hospital pays an hourly rate for the hours worked.

Pricing and commitment. You pay an hourly rate for each role, with no posting or cancellation fees and no minimum commitment. Rates vary by region, with optional holiday rates or pre-agreed shift differentials.

A shift that goes unfilled produces no charge. Hospitals can also permanently hire a professional they meet through the platform without paying a placement or conversion fee.

Credentialing and continuity. Clipboard verifies backgrounds and professional licenses. It can also check hospital-specific requirements, including TB tests, physicals and CPR certifications. Credential records are visible and exportable for audits.

Hospitals can invite professionals they have worked with before. When a professional cancels, the shift is automatically reposted as urgent. Clipboard reports that 95% of shifts posted a day ahead are staffed, and that 85% are filled by a professional the facility has used before.

Who it suits. Clipboard fits hospitals filling CNA, LPN/LVN, RN, allied and therapy gaps shift by shift without signing an agency contract. It also suits hospitals that want to work with a professional before offering a staff position.

Trade-offs.

• Regional role coverage: available roles vary by region, so hospitals need to confirm local coverage with Clipboard’s team.
• Scope of the figures: the 95% and 85% figures cover the whole marketplace. They are not results for a named hospital, specialty or local market.
• No float-pool software or locums: the published offering covers per diem shifts, travel assignments and permanent conversion. Hospitals that want float-pool software or locums will need another source for those.

2. CareRev: best for acute-care per diem with W-2 clinicians

What it is. CareRev describes its platform as designed specifically for acute care. It connects hospitals with local nurses and allied health professionals who work as W-2 employees. On September 4, 2025, the company announced nationwide hospital access to a flexible W-2 workforce through its marketplace and a network of partners.

The platform brings permanent employees, internal pools and marketplace professionals into a single workflow. Its policies prioritize internal resources when shifts are offered, and professionals schedule themselves through a mobile app.

Pricing and commitment. CareRev’s Smart Rates feature applies an AI algorithm to market demand and past shift performance to propose hourly rates. Hospitals can let it manage rates automatically or adjust the recommendations by hand.

At its June 2023 launch, CareRev described three possible adjustments around a facility-set base rate: 10% below, unchanged, or 10% above. Inputs included local rates, specialty, shift duration, time of day and day of week. In that announcement, the company reported:

• an average 18% labor-cost reduction among facilities using Smart Rates
• 47% faster shift filling at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital

Credentialing and continuity. CareRev says every clinician meets Joint Commission credentialing standards and is interviewed by a nurse. Its solutions page also identifies the service as Joint Commission certified.

The company reports that 78% of its marketplace shifts that are difficult to staff fall on nights and weekends. It says those shifts are staffed by clinicians whose acute-care experience exceeds five years.

Internal workforce tools. IRP+ shows hospital leaders their internal staffing capacity and helps them plan, schedule and optimize float pools before bringing in outside labor. CareRev reports external-labor reductions of up to 46% within 60 days among hospitals using IRP+. Workforce plugins add forecasting, labor-cost analytics, reporting and governance on top of existing systems.

Who it suits. CareRev fits acute-care hospitals and health systems that want W-2 clinicians and an internal-first scheduling policy in one system.

Trade-offs.

• Rates move with demand: algorithm-recommended rates can rise on hard-to-fill shifts unless the hospital overrides them.
• Terms to confirm: CareRev’s published pricing material describes how rates are recommended. Hospitals should ask directly about fees and minimums.
• Figures from different periods: the cost and speed figures are company-reported and come from different points in time.

3. ShiftKey: best for choosing exactly who fills a shift

What it is. ShiftKey’s hospital offering connects hospitals with local independent clinicians for last-minute gaps, shifts in patient demand and other PRN needs. The company says it isn’t an agency for travel nurses or permanent placements, but a marketplace that gives hospitals direct access to local, credentialed independent clinicians.

The roles available through its marketplace include CNAs, RNs, LPNs, LVNs, respiratory therapists and physical therapists. ShiftKey reports more than 430 markets, more than 10,000 clients in healthcare settings and more than 76 million scheduled hours.

Pricing and commitment. Hospitals post rates upfront. Professionals request shifts at rates they are willing to accept, and the hospital decides whether to accept each request. ShiftKey advertises that it requires no usage minimums or extended-use contracts and charges no upfront costs, hidden fees or surge pricing.

Onboarding follows four steps:

1. A demo and a discussion with an account manager
2. Setting up staff permissions
3. Posting shifts
4. Building a network of repeat professionals

Credentialing and continuity. Before accepting a request, hospitals can see verified credentials, ratings from other facilities and reliability history. Several tools help bring back familiar clinicians:

• Send Shift and Broadcast Shift offer work directly to professionals the hospital has already used.
• Admin Assist automatically accepts requests from favorites.

Implementation works with the hospital’s own orientation process.

Internal workforce tools. ShiftKey integrates with OnShift, which it identifies as a ShiftKey brand. Its SAMI tool combines workforce visibility and scheduling information, including utilization reporting and spending controls.

Who it suits. ShiftKey fits hospitals that want to set their own rates and pick each clinician from an open pool.

Trade-offs.

• PRN only: hospitals that also need travel or permanent hires will need another vendor.
• Scheduler time: choosing each professional gives control but takes time, which Admin Assist partly offsets.
• Scope of the figures: the scale figures cover all healthcare settings, not hospitals alone.

4. Medely: best for managing internal staff and outside labor together

What it is. Medely is a marketplace and workforce-management platform for nurses and allied professionals. Hospitals build dedicated pools of professionals who meet their requirements, then request coverage as needs change.

Medely says hospitals can post per diem shifts or local assignments, and can work with its team to set up travel assignments through its affiliate, Frontline Health. Medely’s website terms describe professionals as independent third-party medical-service providers.

Medely reports a 97.5% shift-fill rate, more than 1,000 hospital and health-system partners, and more than 300,000 completed shifts since 2016.

Pricing and commitment. Hospitals set the hours, rates and locations of their requests, and Medely’s AI matching connects professionals to them. There is no minimum usage requirement. A separate Health Care Facility Agreement governs staffing transactions on the platform.

Credentialing and continuity. Professionals must supply current credentials and certifications to join, and the platform is designed to keep those records current. Hospitals can post requests, track their status, review credentials, manage timesheets and control contingent-labor spending in one place.

Internal workforce tools. Medely offers two tools:

• Talent Fusion Core centralizes internal staff, float pools and on-call teams across units and locations. Its automations can prioritize internal staff before overtime or outside labor, apply rate differentials and escalate unfilled requests.
• Talent Fusion Total Workforce routes requests to internal resources first, then the Medely marketplace, then vendors. It adds requisitions, approval workflows, interview scheduling, time and attendance, onboarding, offboarding, vendor management and permanent placement.

Who it suits. Medely fits hospitals that want one platform spanning single shifts, local contracts and travel, with internal staff deployed first.

Trade-offs.

• Separate agreement: procurement teams will need to review the Health Care Facility Agreement.
• Travel through an affiliate: travel assignments run through Frontline Health, a separate entity.
• Scope to evaluate: the broader Talent Fusion suite means more modules to assess against existing systems.

Hospital staffing companies by coverage need

Per diem is one kind of coverage. Here is how the field splits once the need changes:

• Individual local per diem shifts: Clipboard, CareRev, ShiftKey and Medely.
• Internal float pools and internal-first deployment: CareRev IRP+, Medely Talent Fusion Core, AMN float-pool services and Aya’s MSP offering.
• Enterprise MSPs and supplier coordination: AMN and Aya run managed-service programs. Medely Total Workforce adds vendor management and automated sequencing of labor sources.
• Travel and longer assignments: Hospitals can post travel assignments on Clipboard for the dates they need. Medely offers local assignments and travel through Frontline Health. Aya and AMN provide travel staffing.
• Locums: CHG’s brands, LocumTenens.com and Cross Country Locums under All Star.
• Permanent hiring: AMN recruitment solutions and Aya. Clipboard offers fee-free conversion of professionals met through its marketplace.

Other hospital staffing companies to know

• AMN Healthcare MSP: an enterprise program covering nursing, allied, international, leadership and locums professionals across travel, temp-to-hire, per diem and permanent placements. Hospitals can choose technology-only, fully managed or blended support.
• AMN float-pool and internal-agency services: support for shift-by-shift float pools, internal agency assignments of 13 weeks or less, and nursing gig-worker pools. Integrations target timekeeping, applicant tracking, ERP, accounting and education systems.
• AMN recruitment solutions: recruitment-process outsourcing, sourcing and screening, project support, recruiter-on-demand services and direct hire.
• Aya Healthcare MSP: combines staffing suppliers and talent access with permanent-hiring tools, float-pool management and predictive scheduling. Aya cites market-validated pricing and nurse-leader candidate vetting.
• Aya Healthcare staffing: travel nursing and allied staffing, alongside per diem, hospital float-pool, in-house agency, permanent and locums options.
• CHG Healthcare (CompHealth, Weatherby Healthcare, Global Medical Staffing): temporary and permanent placements of physicians, allied professionals and nurses.
• LocumTenens.com: temporary placements of physicians, advanced practitioners, psychologists and social workers, onsite and by telehealth. It pairs a free, unlimited job-posting board with full-service recruitment.
• Cross Country Locums, an All Star Healthcare Solutions company: All Star announced its acquisition of Cross Country Healthcare’s locums division on July 28, 2026, and the business operates under this transitional name.

What our expert says

“

A license check is only part of preparing for a shift. Hospitals should also make unit expectations, reporting instructions and orientation requirements clear before the professional arrives. For recurring gaps, inviting back someone who knows the unit can help maintain continuity.

Samay Jhunjhunwalla

Head of Operations, Clipboard

How to choose a hospital staffing company

Start with the length of the gap

• A single open shift points to a per diem marketplace.
• Recurring gaps across units point to a float pool. AMN defines a float pool as staff assigned across local areas or facilities on a shift-by-shift basis.
• Weeks or months point to local contracts, travel, or an internal agency of pre-qualified clinicians cleared for short-term assignments.
• Physician or advanced-practice gaps point to locum tenens, a Latin phrase for temporarily taking another person’s place.

“We have to look at alternative staffing models. The traditional staffing models aren’t going to cut it in the future, unless we can look at an alternative way to get more nurses.”

Vicki Good, then executive director of nursing at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, and a past president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses board of directors. Source: Chief Healthcare Executive, August 24, 2022.

Decide whether the hospital needs an MSP or a VMS

An MSP manages staffing strategy, vendors and administration. A vendor management system (VMS) is the technology that automates and tracks workforce and supplier activity. Health systems juggling many agencies tend to look at MSPs. Hospitals filling shifts directly may need neither.

Compare the pricing model

Each of the four picks prices differently:

• Clipboard: an hourly rate by role that varies by region, with optional differentials.
• CareRev: demand-based rate recommendations.
• ShiftKey: rates the facility posts, which professionals then request.
• Medely: facility-set rates under a separate agreement.

Ask each vendor what happens when a shift is canceled or goes unfilled, and what it costs to hire a professional permanently.

Confirm the platform checks professional credentials

Before booking, confirm that the platform verifies the licenses and certifications required for the role and your hospital. Ask which credentials it checks, how it confirms they are current and whether your team can review the records before accepting a professional. Confirm that those records can also be exported for the hospital’s own audits.

“We cannot rely solely on how many nurse bodies do we have in a unit. We have to know what knowledge they have, what skills they have, what support they have.”

Beth Ulrich, lead author of the national nurse-work-environments study. Source: Chief Healthcare Executive, August 24, 2022.

Plan for orientation and repeat coverage

The Roosevelt Institute interviewed 29 gig nurses and nursing assistants for a December 2024 brief. Those workers raised concerns about canceled or shortened shifts, unpredictable earnings and unfamiliar clinical environments. Hospitals reduce the unfamiliarity problem by inviting back professionals who already know the unit. Every lead pick supports this:

• Clipboard with repeat-professional invitations
• ShiftKey with favorites and direct offers
• Medely with dedicated pools
• CareRev with repeat local clinicians and internal-first deployment

So which service fits best? Shortlist by coverage need first, then compare pricing terms and continuity tools within that group.

Get coverage, or find shifts

For hospital leaders and schedulers: Post an open shift on the Clipboard platform, choose the role you need and connect with qualified local professionals. Clipboard’s team can talk through role coverage in your region and your hospital’s credential requirements.

For nurses, CNAs and allied professionals: Download the Clipboard app to explore hospital shifts near you. Confirm availability for your role and region.

FAQ