Face Off: Jacksonville healthcare providers expand workforce capacity

Key points:

• • Jacksonville’s population growth is expanding demand for rehabilitation, women’s healthcare, and a deeper clinical workforce.
• • Providers are building local talent pipelines and team-based care models to strengthen recruitment, retention, and access.
• • AI and digital tools are reducing administrative work and supporting patient care without replacing local healthcare infrastructure.

July 2026 — Jacksonville healthcare providers now operate in a city that added more than 68,000 residents from 2020 to 2025, pushing its population above 1 million. The expanding and diverse patient population has intensified the demand for healthcare services, placing additional pressure on staffing levels across the region.

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Jacksonville’s growth spans healthcare needs across different stages of life, with nearly 15% of residents age 65 or older and Duval County recording 12,404 births, about one in 11 of which were to mothers who received no prenatal care. Florida hospitals reduced nursing vacancy rates by 52% between 2022 and 2025. Fewer vacancies and a registered nurse turnover rate of 15.7% in 2025 — below the national average — point to improving workforce conditions, although retaining experienced staff remains a priority for providers.

To strengthen workforce pipelines and support retention, the region’s providers are moving training closer to the workplace through partnerships that combine education, financial support, and clinical experience. Brooks Rehabilitation is funding an expansion that will double the University of North Florida’s annual physical therapy class from 30 to 60 students beginning in fall 2026 and offers Jacksonville University nursing scholarships with a direct employment pathway. Baptist Health’s nurse assistant program combines classroom instruction, skills labs, and rotations in acute and long-term care, while the partnership between University of North Florida MedNexus and HCA Healthcare provides employment, tuition reimbursement, mentoring, and hands-on training while students complete their degrees.

Alongside these training investments, technology is emerging as another workforce tool, according to a recent American Medical Association study. AI use among physicians reached 81% in 2026, more than double the 2023 rate, while seven in 10 physicians said AI can automate tasks that contribute to burnout and 76% said it can support patient care. A separate 2025 study across six healthcare systems found that the share of clinicians reporting administrative burden fell from 52% to 39% after 30 days of using ambient AI scribes, alongside reported improvements in their ability to give patients undivided attention.

Invest: Jacksonville spoke with Douglas Baer, president and CEO of Brooks Rehabilitation, and Kate Condliffe, CEO and co-founder of Diana Health, about how providers are building local workforce pipelines, distributing work across clinical teams, and using technology to return more time to patient care.

What factors are shaping the current healthcare landscape in Florida and driving the demand for your specialized services?

Douglas Baer: Demand is increasing for our services, and there are three main drivers. First, we have population growth occurring in Florida and across the Southeast. Second, we have an aging population, with people wanting to stay more active.

Third, people are surviving traumas, major injuries, and illnesses that they may not have survived in the past, and they need extensive rehabilitation.

For us, that means more demand. There is also more competition.

Kate Condliffe: Jacksonville is a population-dense, high-growth area, yet from a women’s health perspective, we see supply constraints, access gaps, and quality-of-care gaps.

The way women’s health programs have been structured over decades does not allow for the kind of care many women are looking for. Care is often delivered through a one-to-one relationship between a patient and an obstetrician. Obstetricians are critical, but they are also covering a busy 24/7 service while managing large patient volumes.

In that environment, it is difficult to spend the time with patients that is needed to deliver truly individualized care. That is the problem we are trying to solve, and it is a major reason we were drawn to the Jacksonville market.

How is your organization creatively addressing ongoing workforce shortages to ensure sustainable, high-quality care?

Baer: Workforce is definitely our biggest challenge and opportunity. It is about making sure we not only have people, but the right people to serve the patients referred to us across inpatient, outpatient, skilled nursing, home care, and community programs.

One program we are very proud of involves our certified nursing assistants. In the past, we offered to pay for nursing assistants to go back to nursing school, but not many people took us up on it. When we looked into it, many had a lot going on outside of work. Even though we were willing to pay for school, they could not take advantage of it.

So, we created a program where we essentially brought a nursing school on campus and worked around their schedules. We have had much greater success. We are now on our third cohort of about 15 people each, mostly nursing assistants, though some people from other areas, such as billing, have joined as well.

We are also working closely with higher education institutions. At the University of North Florida, for example, we are helping the university double the size of its physical therapy program, both financially and with some of our team members’ resources.

Condliffe: According to ACOG, the U.S. is up to 22,000 OB-GYNs short of where we need to be in the coming years. Midwifery-led care is important not only because of the benefits it provides patients, but also because it helps ensure long-term access to care.

In our model, Certified Nurse Midwives work alongside OB-GYNs. Midwives provide much of the routine care, while obstetricians engage when clinically necessary or when requested by patients.

We also take a team-based approach that includes behavioral health specialists, licensed clinical social workers, registered dietitians, health coaches, care navigators, and health educators. That broader team allows us to deliver more personalized care while creating a sustainable workforce model.

How are you integrating technology and digital innovation to improve clinical efficiency and the overall patient experience?

Baer: There are two main areas of technology. One is emerging medical technology. We have a center for innovation where we regularly work with leading healthcare technology and equipment companies to help develop and test new tools that will ultimately benefit our patients.

We also use various robotic technologies. One is Cyberdyne. We partnered on this with a company from Japan. We are one of two rehabilitation providers that have this advanced technology, so patients have come from around the world to use it.
Virtual reality is another major area. We have worked with software developers to create our own virtual reality technology that can be used in therapy. Our therapists work with developers to design applications where patients can use a headset and enter a more engaging environment. That can make them more willing to work harder in therapy.

We can also capture movement data and, over time, use AI to fine-tune therapy techniques and determine what is most impactful for patients in their recovery.

We also see opportunities for artificial intelligence in support areas, particularly our revenue cycle. Another area is clinical education. We have our own therapy residency and fellowship program, so we have been building our own AI-supported clinical library using proprietary information.

On the documentation side, we are testing ambient listening with our physician practice. We are also evaluating areas such as coding and our phone system to improve efficiency and accuracy.

Condliffe: They are game-changing. We use technology to reduce administrative burden and allow providers to focus more fully on the patient in front of them. Technology also helps us use clinical data more effectively so providers can better understand and respond to individual patient needs.

In addition, digital tools support remote access to care, making services more convenient and accessible for women who may face geographic or scheduling barriers.

Our focus is to ensure there are high-quality access points and centers of excellence in communities across the country. We believe in hybrid care models that combine virtual and in-person services, but local healthcare infrastructure remains essential.

As one of my colleagues likes to say, you cannot have a baby through a screen. Virtual care can enhance access, but it cannot replace the local services that communities depend on.
For us, success means helping communities build sustainable women’s health services while supporting women and families through some of the most important moments of their lives.

Want more? Read the Invest: Jacksonville report.