The Biggest Nursing Trends to Track in 2025

Many nursing practices and protocols have remained the same since Florence Nightingale’s time. However, nursing has also changed in ways that seemed unimaginable just a few years ago.

Could you have imagined reducing 30-minute protocols to about a minute?

A few years back, could you choose your schedule and work where and when you wanted?

As we enter the 2025 calendar year, this article explores these ideas and the top nursing trends to keep an eye on.

1. Continued adoption of artificial intelligence

During this new age of artificial intelligence (AI), many worry that this technology will take over their jobs.

However, with the ongoing nursing shortage, AI promises to reduce nurse burnout and increase retention rates. Can it live up to the hype? Higher retention rates are becoming increasingly important as turnover and hiring costs for healthcare facilities continue to rise.

In 2023, McKinsey and the American Nurses Foundation estimated that technology could free up approximately 20 percent of nurses’ time.

Here are just a couple of ways AI in nursing is reducing nurses’ workloads and increasing efficiency in healthcare, according to HealthTech’s article, “‘A Lot More Teamwork’: Healthcare Explores the Use of AI for Nursing Workflows”:

Efficient utilization of the operating room

Providence, a health system with acute care ministries across seven states, has developed an AI tool to schedule surgeries more efficiently. The tool provides surgeons, management, and other staff with real-time schedule visibility.

The implementation of this AI tool has reduced unused and unreleased block time by 34 percent, optimizing operating room utilization.

Reduced sign offs

Guthrie Clinic, which serves parts of rural New York and Pennsylvania, has implemented an AI-supported telesitting program to assist bedside nurses with highly trained virtual nurses that attend rounds and review medications and protocols.

Thanks to cameras and microphones set up in patient rooms, many protocols that required sign offs by other clinicians now take 60 to 90 seconds via camera. This program’s success can be measured by the drop in nurse turnover from 25 to 13 percent.

As artificial intelligence becomes more popular and receives greater attention from healthcare decision-makers, nurses can expect to hear more about the topic over the next year.

2. Worsening nursing shortages

Although the growth in demand for registered nurses (RNs) will be slightly lower than the growth in supply, demand is expected to outnumber supply as far out as 2037.

Based on data from the Health Resources & Services Administration, in 2037, the supply of registered nurses will grow by 18 percent, reaching 3,337,000 RNs. Simultaneously, the demand for registered nurses will grow by 16 percent, reaching 3,544,980 RNs.

Despite efforts to increase the ranks of registered nurses, by 2037, there will still be a deficit of approximately 207,980 RNs.

Some states are harder hit by the nurse shortage than others. Although the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis estimates that the nationwide shortage will only be 6 percent by 2037, the following states face alarming shortages by the same year:

North Carolina: 22%
Washington: 22%
Maryland: 20%
South Carolina: 19%
Michigan: 19%
New Mexico: 19%
Oklahoma: 18%
California: 18%
Idaho: 17%
Georgia: 17%

Nursing shortages inevitably increase nurses’ workloads, which leads to higher burnout and turnover rates. Due to its impact on nursing salaries and job outlook, the state of the nursing workforce is always an important trend to follow.

3. Nurses opting for flexibility in their work

The nursing shortage is not a new phenomenon in the United States. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the shortage and significantly increased burnout in nursing.

Furthermore, younger generations of nurses place more value on work-life balance. This combination of factors has given nursing professionals a unique opportunity to prioritize flexibility.

Clinician workforce trends show a high percentage of nurses (28 percent) working exclusively through staffing platforms. PRN staffing platforms allow nurses to choose when and where to work, providing the much-desired flexibility.

Many nurses have also opted for part-time work, even popularizing the concept of the “soft nursing” lifestyle on social media platforms. Similarly, the increased availability of other unique nursing jobs, such as cannabis nursing or healthcare writing, has left the most in-demand nursing specialties with even greater shortages.

4. Growing per diem nursing opportunities

Recent trends in nursing, including nursing shortages and clinicians’ preference for flexibility, have forced healthcare executives to expand their staffing strategies and look for sustainable solutions.

Healthcare facilities are having a hard time attracting nurses—and an even harder time retaining them.

Nursa commissioned a research survey of 203 hospital executives in 2023 with the following key findings regarding staffing trends in nursing:

Nearly all of the surveyed chief financial officers (CFOs) (98 percent) considered nurse staffing a significant challenge for their health systems during and after the pandemic.
Most of the surveyed CFOs (77 percent) reported increasing starting wages by at least 20 percent in the previous two years.
A majority of hospitals and health systems (86 percent) saw at least 10 percent of their nursing staff quit in 2023.

In the context of severe nursing shortages and high turnover rates despite increases in pay, hospitals and health systems are getting more creative by incorporating new staffing strategies.

In fact, according to the same survey, the volume of contract nurses more than doubled from 2019 to 2023. These contract per diem nursing opportunities allow nurses to maintain flexibility and their desired work-life balance.

Furthermore, 63 percent of health system executives stated that the larger pool of nurses provided by per diem staffing would allow them to offer greater flexibility to internal staff.

What does the future hold for nurses?

The future of nursing is promising.

The demand for nurses will continue to outnumber supply for the foreseeable future, guaranteeing job security and a growing variety of career paths.

This variety of career opportunities includes flexible positions, such as per diem nursing jobs.

Advances in technology and greater adoption of artificial intelligence also promise to reduce nurses’ workloads and allow them to focus on providing patient-centered care.

Technology is also facilitating the roles of nurse managers and schedulers through digital nurse staffing platforms, where facilities can post available shifts and clinicians can pick up PRN jobs that fit their schedules and interests.

Nursing in 2025 promises at least as many exciting opportunities as it does challenges.

Interested in learning more? Explore more topics of interest for aspiring or seasoned nurses in our nursing blog. Find nursing tips, information on nurse wages, healthcare industry news, and more.

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