For most health systems, workforce strategy has been primarily a recruiting problem. They’ll post the opening, compete for the candidate and hopefully fill the seat. In a labor market where the shortage of nurses, physicians and specialists has deepened faster than the academic pipeline grows, that model has become both more expensive and less effective.
Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health has been focused on a different strategy. Deborah Yount, chief human resources officer, has spent several years reorienting its workforce strategy around a premise that health systems growing their own talent will outlast those still competing for everyone else’s.
“We are really the stewards to help with the job growth and career opportunities,” Ms. Yount said. “We know it improves the quality, consistency and availability of healthcare for our patients.”
In 2025, Sutter hired nearly 1,000 physicians and grew its nursing workforce by more than 2,000 roles while reducing nursing turnover to 9.8%. The results reflect an investment infrastructure constructed over several years and now showing returns at scale.
The platform for that investment is Sutter Health University, which served 14,000 leaders and employees and delivered more than 40,000 unique learning experiences in 2025. Beyond its internal programs, Sutter maintains more than 200 external academic partnerships through which it generated more than 1.3 million hours of clinical and practical training last year.
“We are able to convert around 900 student relationships,” Ms. Yount said. “It goes back to a focus on cultivating talent from the industry to make sure they continue to grow at Sutter.”
The health system is building a similar physician pipeline. Sutter’s graduate medical education program had 282 residency openings in the 2024-25 academic year and is expanding to 400, with a long-term target of 1,000 residents.
In 2025, Sutter also transitioned more than 245 nurse residency graduates into permanent roles. To reach employees across all the communities it serves, the system launched a mobile simulation lab designed to deliver hands-on clinical training to staff in both urban and rural settings.
“You touch the rural and urban communities we serve, and it’s providing that extensive and immersive training,” Ms. Yount said.
The financial case for the model rests on retention. Sutter’s overall employee turnover reached 47% in 2022, and since then the system has made deliberate moves to lower turnover and improve overall culture. The system now reports a 90% retention rate, with first-year employee turnover below 20%. In 2025, Sutter invested $24 million in career advancement and leadership development across the organization and provided approximately $500,000 in tuition discounts to support employees pursuing additional credentials.
“At Sutter Health we view investing in people as a long-term strategy,” Ms. Yount said. “It strengthens patient care and reduces cost.”
Employees who stay avoid the recruiting and onboarding costs of replacement, develop clinical depth over time and reduce the system’s reliance on more expensive contract labor. Patients benefit from the continuity that a stable workforce provides.
“We believe that investment pays off whether they stay with us and grow their careers here and create a care model that is better for the patients as well,” she said.
Programs at the manager level are designed to close the gap between individual development and organizational cohesion. Sutter launched a Manager’s Foundation and certification program alongside culture labs aimed at equipping people leaders to build team engagement, communicate mission and create visible career pathways for direct reports.
“Leadership training alone isn’t enough,” Ms. Yount said. “Every employee and clinician wants to see themselves in the future of the organization and not just the job they hold today.”
The distinction between filling a role and building a career is at the core of a shift Ms. Yount believes healthcare organizations must make. The post-pandemic scramble for workers has not resolved into a stable labor market, but rather t has exposed how differently organizations can approach the same shortage.
“Those that will continue to grow will be the ones with the strongest pathways for people to learn, grow and advance their careers,” Ms. Yount said. “We believe that healthcare organizations have to think beyond filling today’s vacancies but filling the roles of the workforce of the future.”
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