A conversation with Arnot Health, a member of Centralus Health, and Hallmark
By Michelle Sanchez-Bickley, SVP of Customer Success at Hallmark
At the 2026 AONL Annual Conference, one theme became clear across conversations with nursing leaders: staffing has become harder to manage, not because the problems are new, but because the complexity has changed.
Balancing patient care, workforce expectations, and financial pressure is no longer something you can manage one shift at a time. The model itself has to evolve.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Jerikah Gilliland, Chief Nursing Officer at Arnot Health, and Andrea Mazzoccoli, Chief Nursing Officer at Hallmark, to discuss how they’re working together using Hallmark’s technology to build more flexible workforce models and improve visibility into staffing decisions.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Q: Staffing has always been complex. What’s fundamentally changed?
Jerikah Gilliland:
Previously, we didn’t have a clear picture of what was happening across our workforce with our agency nurses. We were relying on calls, emails, and constant back-and-forth just to fill shifts, which made it difficult to see trends, understand how our resources were being utilized, or plan ahead in any meaningful way.
Once we implemented a vendor management system (VMS), that shifted quickly. We could see what we had, where gaps were forming, and how different staffing models were being used across the system. That visibility changed how we operated. It gave us the foundation to move from reacting every day to making more informed, proactive decisions.
But it also made something very clear. Visibility shows you the problem. It doesn’t fix it. You still need a better strategy behind it, one that allows you to actually act on that information and change outcomes.
Andrea Mazzoccoli:
As CNO at Hallmark, and drawing on my experience as a chief nurse executive and quality officer across health systems, we’re seeing this challenge play out broadly.
One of the biggest shifts is recognizing that staffing and scheduling are not standalone challenges. They are the byproduct of a broader workforce strategy and directly influence outcomes across patient care, experience, and cost.
Q: How did that shift influence your approach to workforce strategy?
Jerikah Gilliland:
What we realized quickly is that traditional staffing models weren’t built for how nurses want to work today or for the level of flexibility organizations need to operate effectively. We had strong clinicians, but we didn’t have a structure that allowed us to flex across different roles and settings in a way that worked for both the organization and our staff in a robust way.
So, we built a structured internal resource pool. We started with about 60 per diem nurses and created tiered options so they could choose how they wanted to work, whether staying in their home unit, working across specialties, or taking on internal travel roles. That flexibility made the program more attractive, but it also gave us more control over how we allocated our resources.
Since launching a year ago, the pool has grown to more than 110 nurses and now supports over 5,500 hours of coverage each month. That shift has driven more than $2.3M in cost avoidance by reducing reliance on agency labor. That’s hundreds of shifts we can now fill more intentionally. But the bigger impact is retention. We’ve been able to keep nurses who would have otherwise left, whether that’s new parents, those continuing their education, or experienced clinicians looking for something different.
It also changed how we think about staffing. Instead of just filling shifts, we’re making decisions about how to balance internal resources, overtime, and contingent support based on what makes the most sense. Because the reality is, those decisions aren’t one-size-fits-all. It’s about understanding the tradeoffs and making the right call for your workforce and your patients.
Q: Where has AI made the biggest difference in supporting that model?
Jerikah Gilliland:
Once we had the right structure in place, AI became the way we could manage that balance more effectively and make better decisions at scale. One of the biggest impacts has been gaining more control and clarity around costs. Before, we didn’t have a clear way to understand where our bill rates should be or how they compared to the market. Now, we can benchmark rates and make more informed decisions, which has led to $4 million in savings since implementing the VMS.
At the same time, we’ve been able to better understand our internal workforce and how it’s being utilized. Instead of defaulting to one option, we can see where we have capacity, how it’s trending, and make more intentional decisions about how to allocate those resources.
The next step for us is improving how we execute on staffing day to day. Our managers spend a significant amount of time building schedules and reacting to changes like callouts, leaves, and turnover. Those patterns have always existed, but historically we haven’t had a way to act on them early enough.
What we’re working toward is being able to anticipate those patterns, identify gaps earlier, and make better decisions about how to fill them. Not just faster, but more intelligently. That’s where we see the biggest opportunity going forward.
Andrea Mazzoccoli:
What Jerikah is describing is really the shift from managing staffing to managing the workforce as a system. It’s no longer about optimizing a single resource type. It’s about understanding how all the pieces work together and making decisions based on that full picture.
Staffing and scheduling today aren’t just about supply and demand. They’re influenced by clinician expectations, patient demand, and cost pressures all at once. That’s why flexibility and better insight have become so important.
When you have visibility into your workforce and the ability to act on it, you can start to align supply with demand in a much more intentional way. That’s what drives better outcomes across quality, experience, and cost.
Q: How is this changing conversations at the leadership level?
Jerikah Gilliland:
It’s changed the conversation from opinion to data. When you can clearly show outcomes, whether that’s cost, coverage, or retention, it becomes much easier to move initiatives forward.
It also changes how we engage as a leadership team. Nursing, HR, and finance are all looking at the same information and understanding the impact of those decisions in a different way. Instead of having separate conversations, we’re aligned around a shared set of data and outcomes because of the clarity Hallmark provides.
That’s important, because these decisions aren’t just operational. They directly impact financial performance, workforce stability, and ultimately patient care. When you can connect those things and show the results, it builds confidence across the organization to continue investing in new approaches.
And that’s really what allows you to keep moving forward. Once you can demonstrate impact, it opens the door to doing more.
Q: What advice would you give to leaders just getting started?
Jerikah Gilliland:
Start with visibility, and then build from there. You don’t need to solve everything at once, but you do need to understand where you are. Once you have that, you can build a more flexible model and then layer in tools that help you act on that information.
There’s always going to be some hesitation, especially when it comes to using technology and AI in new ways. But once you start, and you see the results, that’s what builds trust. And that’s what allows you to keep moving forward.
Andrea Mazzoccoli:
If you’re just getting started, the most important thing is to step back and look at the structures, processes, and systems that support workforce operations as a whole. Organizations often find themselves addressing challenges like filling shifts, reducing overtime, or managing agency spend individually. But those decisions are all connected, and optimizing one area without understanding the full picture can create new challenges somewhere else.
Start by getting a clear view of your entire workforce, including how your FTEs, float pool, and contingent resources are utilized. From there, you can begin to understand where you have flexibility, where you have risk, and where you’re making tradeoffs.
Then focus on making decisions earlier. Most staffing challenges don’t happen overnight. The signals are there. The opportunity is to act on that information before it becomes a gap you’re trying to fill.
As discussed throughout this conversation, staffing is no longer about managing individual shifts. It’s about understanding how demand, workforce availability, and cost interact and making decisions across that full picture.
Capabilities like Hallmark’s Resource Intelligence, Bill Rate Intelligence, and Intelligent Shift Collaboration support this transition by giving leaders the visibility and insight to evaluate tradeoffs and act earlier. But the real change is how those capabilities are used, not just to manage staffing, but to shape a more balanced, sustainable strategy over time.
What this ultimately enables is a more proactive approach, where organizations are not constantly reacting to gaps, but anticipating them and making more informed decisions about how to allocate their workforce. As that shift takes hold, staffing becomes less of a daily challenge to manage and more of a strategic advantage.
Want to learn more? Listen to the full conversation,
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