Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to recruit talented professionals while also creating teams that reflect the communities they serve. Building a diverse healthcare workforce is not simply about meeting representation goals—it is about creating an environment where people with different backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and skills can contribute and succeed.
For healthcare employers, the question is often: Where do we actually start?
The answer begins with how organizations recruit, support, retain, and develop their people.
Healthcare professionals work with patients from a wide range of cultural, racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, and personal backgrounds. A workforce with varied experiences can help organizations better understand the communities they serve and identify different approaches to patient care.
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) reports that in 2024, 56.1% of active U.S. physicians identified as White, 19.8% as Asian, 6.7% as Hispanic or Latino, and 5.3% as Black or African American. These figures demonstrate both the diversity that already exists within healthcare and the continued opportunity to broaden representation across the profession.
The need is particularly important as the U.S. healthcare system prepares for future workforce challenges. AAMC workforce projections point to a potential shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036, making it increasingly important for healthcare organizations to reach and develop talent from a broad range of backgrounds.
Building a diverse workforce starts before someone is hired.
Review your current recruitment process and ask:
Expanding recruitment channels can help organizations reach professionals who may not encounter traditional healthcare job postings.
Healthcare employers can also use technology to expand their talent pool and identify qualified professionals based on skills, experience, credentials, and career goals rather than relying exclusively on traditional networks.
A diverse workforce cannot be built if organizations continue recruiting from the same limited pool.
Employers should consider reaching professionals across different geographic locations, educational backgrounds, career stages, and professional networks.
This does not mean lowering hiring standards. Instead, it means making sure qualified candidates have a fair opportunity to be considered.
For example, organizations can:
The AAMC has also emphasized the importance of increasing the range of backgrounds and experiences represented in the physician pipeline.
Recruitment does not happen in isolation. Candidates evaluate healthcare organizations before deciding whether to apply.
Your employer brand should communicate what it is actually like to work for your organization.
Consider whether your careers page, social media, job advertisements, and employee stories show a workplace where different types of professionals can succeed.
This connects directly with Employer Branding 101 for Healthcare Organizations, because a strong employer brand can help organizations communicate their culture and attract professionals who align with their values.
Instead of simply saying that your organization values diversity, demonstrate it through:
Hiring diverse professionals is only the beginning.
If employees do not feel supported after joining an organization, recruitment efforts will not create lasting workforce diversity.
This is why diversity strategies should be connected to employee retention.
Organizations should regularly evaluate:
Our guide on Retention Strategies That Actually Work in Healthcare explores practical approaches healthcare organizations can use to keep talented professionals engaged and reduce unnecessary turnover.
A diverse workforce becomes sustainable when employees can see a future for themselves within the organization.
Representation should not stop at entry-level positions.
Healthcare organizations should consider whether employees from different backgrounds have equitable access to mentorship, professional development, promotions, and leadership opportunities.
Career development programs can include:
The NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard provides an example of why this matters. Its 2024 data found that 28.6% of NHS trust staff were from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, but only 12.7% of very senior managers came from these backgrounds.
This illustrates an important point: having a diverse workforce is different from having diversity throughout the organization.
Even well-designed recruitment policies can fail if the people implementing them are not prepared.
Hiring managers and leaders should understand how their decisions can unintentionally create barriers during recruiting, interviewing, promotion, and performance evaluation.
Training can cover:
The goal is not simply to complete a training program. It is to build better, more consistent decision-making into everyday management.
You cannot improve what you do not measure.
Healthcare organizations should establish measurable workforce goals and regularly review their progress.
Depending on the organization, useful metrics may include:
Data should be used to identify where barriers may exist—not simply to produce a diversity report.
The AMA, AAMC, and ACGME have also worked together on standards for collecting and reporting physician race, ethnicity, and language-proficiency data to support a better understanding of the healthcare workforce.
Diversity should not be treated as a one-time hiring initiative.
It should become part of the organization’s broader workforce strategy.
That means connecting diversity with:
Recruitment → Onboarding → Retention → Development → Promotion → Leadership
When these areas work together, organizations can build a workforce that is not only more diverse but also more stable and better positioned for future workforce demands.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ 2024 report on the healthcare workforce similarly highlights workforce supply, distribution, education, and the challenges affecting different healthcare professions and underserved populations.
Building a diverse healthcare workforce does not require changing everything at once.
Start by evaluating your current workforce and recruitment process.
Ask three questions:
1. Who are we currently reaching?
Identify where your candidates are coming from and whether your recruitment strategy is reaching a broad talent pool.
2. Who are we retaining?
Look at turnover, employee feedback, and career progression to understand whether different groups have equal opportunities to succeed.
3. Who is moving into leadership?
Examine whether employees from different backgrounds have access to mentorship, development, promotions, and leadership positions.
From there, organizations can create measurable goals and improve one part of the employee journey at a time.
A diverse healthcare workforce does not happen simply because an organization posts an inclusive job advertisement. It requires intentional recruitment, supportive workplace culture, meaningful retention strategies, equitable career development, and accountability from leadership.
For healthcare employers facing growing workforce demands, expanding the talent pool can also be a practical business strategy.
The organizations that invest in people—not only at the point of hire but throughout their careers—will be better positioned to attract, retain, and develop the healthcare professionals they need.
Diversity starts with who you recruit. Inclusion determines who stays. And opportunity determines who leads.