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Two new reports map nursing workforce strain: AI participation gap and early-career turnover

· Hedy Nie· 4 min read
Two new reports map nursing workforce strain: AI participation gap and early-career turnover

Key takeaways

  • Elsevier's Clinician of the Future 2026 found 41% of nurses use AI regularly, versus 57% of physicians.
  • 41% of nurses say their input rarely or never shapes their organization's decisions, leaving nurses out of AI rollouts they have to run.
  • Press Ganey's 2026 report (500,000+ nurses and APPs) found about 17% RN turnover and roughly 1 in 5 early-career nurses leaving.
  • Together: a digital workplace built without nursing input, handed to the early-career nurses most likely to walk.

Elsevier's Clinician of the Future 2026 found 41% of nurses use AI regularly, compared with 57% of physicians, and 41% of nurses said their input rarely or never shapes AI decisions at work. Press Ganey's 2026 nursing report covering more than 500,000 nurses and APPs documented about 17% RN turnover, with roughly 1 in 5 early-career nurses leaving their organization.

Two nursing workforce reports surfaced through the May 14 KFF Health News briefing. Read together, they sketch a coherent picture of where the profession is feeling structural pressure.

The first is Elsevier's Clinician of the Future 2026. The report found that 41% of nurses use AI regularly in their work, compared with 57% of physicians. The gap in usage matters less than the second data point: 41% of nurses said their input rarely or never shapes AI decision-making at their organization. AI tools are being deployed into clinical workflows that nurses run, but nursing input on tool selection, configuration, and rollback is missing in nearly half of the cases surveyed.

The implications are practical. Patient acuity scoring, staffing prediction, documentation autocomplete, fall risk algorithms, and discharge readiness scoring all sit primarily in nursing workflow. Tools deployed without nursing input tend to fail in predictable ways: false alerts that staff learn to ignore, documentation that auto-fills incorrect information, and acuity scores that diverge from clinical reality. The Elsevier findings suggest these failure modes are widespread rather than exceptional.

The second report is Press Ganey's 2026 nursing analysis, which covers more than 500,000 registered nurses and advanced practice providers across the US. The headline numbers: roughly 17% overall RN turnover, and approximately 1 in 5 early-career nurses leaving their organization within their first years of practice. Early-career attrition has been a persistent issue since the pandemic, and the new data indicates it has not significantly improved over the past 12 months.

The two reports interact in a way the individual headlines don't capture. Early-career nurses entering the workforce in 2025 and 2026 inherit a digital environment built largely without nursing input. They also face the same operational pressures, including staffing density and documentation load, that the previous generation of nurses cited as reasons to leave. The exit rates suggest these conditions are still driving turnover at the early end of the career pipeline.

For health system leaders, the implication is direct. Retention investment that does not include meaningful nursing involvement in AI and workflow decisions will continue to underperform. The everyday work environment matters too. Schedule design, mental health support, professional development pathways, and the operational layer of clinical work, from documentation tools down to scrubs for healthcare professionals, all factor into whether early-career nurses stay long enough to become senior clinicians.

The 2027 retention data will read worse if the AI participation gap doesn't close. Both reports point in the same direction.

Frequently asked questions

What did Elsevier's Clinician of the Future 2026 find about nurses and AI?

It found 41% of nurses use AI regularly compared with 57% of physicians, and 41% of nurses said their input rarely or never shapes their organization's decisions.

What did Press Ganey's 2026 nursing report find about turnover?

Across more than 500,000 nurses and advanced practice providers, it found about 17% overall RN turnover and roughly 1 in 5 early-career nurses leaving their organization.

Why do the two reports matter together?

Early-career nurses inherit AI workflows built largely without nursing input while facing the same staffing and documentation pressures that drive turnover, so the exit rates and the participation gap reinforce each other.

What can health systems do about it?

Retention efforts that leave nurses out of AI and workflow decisions tend to underperform; involving nurses in tool selection, configuration, and rollback is the practical lever.

Sources

Edited by Hedy Nie, COO of Eipnare. Connect on LinkedIn.

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