Wednesday February 25, 2026
Talent Acquisition Summit 2026
The ASHHRA Talent Acquisition Summit is an invitation-only event designed specifically for healthcare talent acquisition executives. The exclusive event offers a unique opportunity to explore innovative strategies, share best practices, and build meaningful connections with peers who are redefining how healthcare organizations attract and retain top talent.
ASHHRA Talent Acquisition Summit 2026
Nashville, Tennessee
July 22-24, 2026
Summit attendees should plan to arrive by 3:00 p.m.
Each summit will adjourn on day three, after breakfast and concluding comments.
ASHHRA, along with our sponsors, host healthcare HR executives and thought leaders in this intimate event of up to 24 attendees. Each session includes education and open discussions on human resource trends, solutions and strategies. Selected participants are invited to attend one of the sessions and are provided with:
Complimentary registration
Travel reimbursement (up to $500)
Hotel accommodations
All meals and entertainment
Opportunities to strategize and network with executive-level peers from across the country.
The application for the 2026 ASHHRA Talent Acquisition Summit is now closed.
QUICK LINKS
About the ASHHRA Talent Acquisition Summit
The inaugural ASHHRA Talent Acquisition Summit builds on the success of the Healthcare Executive Summit, which brought together a select group of healthcare HR leaders in Savannah, Georgia. That event fostered deep conversations around human resources trends, strategies, and solutions, all within an intimate setting that encouraged meaningful networking and collaboration.
Due to the overwhelmingly positive feedback and high engagement from participants, ASHHRA is expanding the experience by hosting the only event dedicated to healthcare talent acquisition.
The Talent Acquisition Summit is by invitation-only for practitioners, with a limited number of participants to ensure rich dialogue and strong peer connections. Interested professionals are encouraged to complete an application to be considered for an invitation.
ATTENDEES
Beth Israel Lahey Health – Executive Director, Talent Acquisition
Broad River Rehab / Aegis Therapies – CHRO
Broward Health – Director, Talent Acquisition
Carle Health System – VP, Talent Acquisition & Workforce Development
CommonSpirit Health – Market Director, Talent Acquisition
Community Health Systems – VP, Enterprise Talent Acquisition
Cook Children’s Health Care System – Director, Talent Acquisition
Emory Healthcare – Corporate Director
Endeavor Health – Manager, Workforce Planning & Sourcing
Erie Family Health Centers – Talent Acquisition Supervisor
Eskenazi Health – Director, Talent Acquisition & Culture
Franciscan Health – Manager Talent Acquisition
HCA Healthcare – Manager, TA Technology
Infirmary Health – Director, Talent Acquisition and Workforce Development
New Hope Treatment Centers – Chief People Officer
Penn Medicine – Director, TA Strategy & Enablement
PIH Health – System Director Talent Acquisition
Regional One Health – Sr. Director, Human Resources
Rochester Regional Health – Senior Director, Talent Acquisition & Onboarding
Signet Health Corporation – VP, Talent Engagement
Southeast Primary Care Partners – Chief People Officer
SSM Health – System Director Employee Health
St. Elizabeth Healthcare – Director, Workforce Development
University of Kentucky, Beyond Blue Division – VP/CHRO
University of Rochester, Thompson Health S – Director, Recruitment and Engagement
University of Vermont Health – Director, Talent Acquisition
UT Medical – Executive Director, HR
Wellstar MCG Health Med Ctr & Children’s Hospital of GA – VP & CNO
PROGRAM
Schedule at a Glance
Wednesday, July 22
- 4:00 p.m. Arrival and check-in at Placemakr Premier Sobro (205 Demonbreun St, Nashville, TN 37201)
- 4:30 – 6:00 p.m.: Welcome | Happy Hour at Nashville City Club (NCC)
- 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.: Dinner at Boqueria
Thursday, July 23
- 8:30 – 9:00 a.m.: Breakfast
- 9:00 – 10:00 a.m.: Education
- 10:00 – 10:15 a.m.: Break
- 10:15 – 11:15 a.m.: Education
- 11:15 –11:30 a.m.: Break
- 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.: Education
- 12:30 – 1:00 p.m.: Lunch
- 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.: Education
- 2:00 – 2:15 p.m.: Break
- 2:15 – 3:15 p.m.: Education
- 3:15 – 3:30 p.m.: Break
- 3:30 – 4:00 p.m.: Debrief Topics, Open Forum
- 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.: Mental Refresh
- 6:00 p.m.: Walk to dinner venue – Meet at hotel lobby
- 6:15 – 8:30 p.m.: Dinner at Morton’s The Steakhouse
Friday, July 24
- 8:30 – 9:00 a.m.: Breakfast
- 9:00 – 10:00 a.m.: Roundtable Discussion
- 10:00 – 10:30 a.m.: Final comments/Adjourn
All events in Nashville City Club (NCC) — located across the street from the Placemakr Premier SoBro hotel — unless otherwise indicated.
Wednesday, July 22
4:30 – 6:00 p.m. Welcome | Happy Hour - NCC
4:30 – 6:00 p.m. – Welcome/Happy Hour | Nashville City Club (NCC): The Study
Nashville City Club (NCC): The Study
200 2nd Ave S
Nashville, TN 37201
The NCC is located directly across the street from the Placemakr Premier SoBro. The Welcome/Happy Hour will be held in The Study at the NCC.
Directions from Placemaker Premier Sobro to NCC: MAP
6:30 – 8:30 p.m. Dinner at Boqueria
6:30 – 8:30 p.m. Dinner at Boqueria
Boqueria
5005 Broadway Pl
Nashville, TN 37203
Directions from NCC to Boqueria
After the Happy Hour, we will make our way to dinner for family-style tapas at Boqueria, located approximaltey 0.4 miles from the NCC.
Thursday, July 23
8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Breakfast
Breakfast will be in the Ballroom at the NCC.
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Education - Beyond Sourcing Harder: Expanding Healthcare Talent Pools Through New Workforce Channels
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Education
Beyond Sourcing Harder: Expanding Healthcare Talent Pools Through New Workforce Channels
Healthcare talent acquisition leaders are no longer simply filling vacancies. They are being asked to help solve a broader workforce supply problem in an environment where traditional candidate pools are constrained, competition for clinical talent is intensifying, and many of the most urgent roles cannot be filled by “sourcing harder” alone.
This session will create a thoughtful, peer-based exchange among healthcare TA executives about the current state of talent acquisition and the pressures reshaping the work. Participants will examine where existing sourcing strategies are holding up, where they are breaking down, and why many familiar interventions may improve efficiency without meaningfully expanding the qualified talent pool.
Through facilitated discussion and small-group dialogue, participants will identify and name the challenges their organizations are encountering, compare what they have already tried, and consider what additional mechanisms may be needed beyond traditional external recruiting. The conversation will explore how healthcare organizations can begin thinking differently about talent channels, including education-linked attraction strategies, internal mobility, upskilling pathways, skills-based hiring, and other approaches that help build talent toward readiness rather than only compete for talent that already exists.
The goal is a candid, executive-level conversation about acquisition today and what’s next. What is changing, what is no longer working as intended, and what healthcare organizations need to create more durable and diversified talent pipelines.
Objectives
- Identify where traditional sourcing strategies are no longer sufficient to meet healthcare workforce demand, and examine the difference between improving recruiting efficiency and expanding the qualified talent pool.
- Discuss how education-linked strategies, upskilling, skills-based hiring, and internal mobility strategies can function as talent acquisition channels.
- Compare peer perspectives on what healthcare organizations have tried, where those efforts are working or falling short, and what new mechanisms may be needed, and reframe talent acquisition from filling open requisitions to helping build sustainable workforce channels.
Presenters
- Raphael Rosenblatt, MST, MPP
Chief Portfolio Officer
Workforce Edge - Matthew Connell, Ed.D.
Principal, Healthcare Education Solutions
Workforce Edge
10:00 – 10:15 a.m. Break
10:00 – 10:15 a.m. Break
10:15 – 11:15 a.m. Education - Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Verifications: Aligning Compliance, Cost, and Candidate Experience in Healthcare Hiring
10:15 – 11:15 a.m. Education
Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Verifications: Aligning Compliance, Cost, and Candidate Experience in Healthcare Hiring
Verifications remain a critical component of healthcare screening programs. However, as organizations face mounting pressure to fill positions efficiently while maintaining compliance and workforce quality standards, many are reevaluating how service selection and workflow affect costs, hiring timelines, operational efficiency, and the candidate experience.
This session explores how healthcare organizations can align hiring and screening practices with workforce goals, compliance requirements, and organizational risk tolerance. Attendees will examine common approaches for validating candidate qualifications and experience, including primary source verification, employment databases, document collection, reference checks, and hybrid approaches. Through real-world examples and peer discussion, participants will explore the strengths, limitations, and practical applications of each approach.
Healthcare leaders will gain insight into how organizations are modernizing hiring practices, revisiting legacy processes, and creating more flexible strategies that support both operational efficiency and compliance expectations. Attendees will leave with practical frameworks for evaluating their current processes and identifying opportunities to improve hiring outcomes, optimize program resources, and enhance the candidate experience.
Objectives
- Identify how hiring and screening practices influence hiring timelines, operational efficiency, candidate experience, and overall program costs.
- Evaluate the strengths, limitations, and appropriate use cases of various methods used to validate candidate qualifications and experience, including primary source verification, employment databases, document collection, reference checks, and hybrid approaches.
- Apply a practical framework for aligning hiring and screening practices with role requirements, organizational risk tolerance, compliance obligations, and workforce goals.
Presenters
- Joe Doyle
VP, Sales and Account Management
InCheck, Inc. - Amber Chardavoyne
Senior Sales Executive
InCheck, Inc.
11:15 – 11:30 a.m. Break
11:15 – 11:30 a.m. Break
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Education - Unified System Allowing for Cost Effective and Agile Workforce Optimization
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Education
Unified System Allowing for Cost Effective and Agile Workforce Optimization
Your workforce platform should cater to your organization’s individual needs. There are many ways in which your overall workforce costs are silently adding up, and no two organizations are going to have the same solution to reduce those costs. Our goal is to work together to align talent acquisition strategies and discuss how it can affect cost inefficiencies.
Objectives
- Reduce cost inefficiencies with flexible workforce solutions.
- Use a unified platform to enhance your HCM solution.
- Align talent acquisition strategies to further reduce unnecessary costs.
Presenters
- Joe Cabral
Chief Growth Officer
Prolucent - Barry Hellman
VP, Sales
Prolucent
12:30 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
12:30 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 – 2:00 p.m. Education - After July 1: What Student Loan Changes Mean for the Future Healthcare Workforce Pipeline
1:00 – 2:00 p.m. Education
After July 1: What Student Loan Changes Mean for the Future Healthcare Workforce Pipeline
The landscape of talent acquisition changed on July 1, when sweeping federal student loan revisions took effect, eliminating Grad PLUS loans and sharply lowering borrowing limits for graduate clinical fields like nursing, PAs, and therapy. With a massive funding gap now facing future clinicians, how will your organization protect its talent pipeline?
This session delivers a data-driven look into the immediate fallout of these regulations. We will unpack Clasp’s recent analysis of 19,620 public submissions, which revealed a striking 98% public opposition to these limits due to severe workforce shortage concerns. Participants will explore the direct implications of these cuts on student enrollment, institutional access, and your organization’s recruitment pipeline.
Moving from analysis to action, the discussion will pivot to long-term talent retention strategies. Discover how forward-thinking employers are turning this regulatory hurdle into a competitive advantage by shifting from traditional retention perks to early-commitment, employer-sponsored student loan repayment infrastructure.
Objectives
- Understand July 1 student loan changes and which healthcare education pathways may be most affected.
- Develop insight into what public comments reveal about student, faculty, and workforce concerns.
- Discuss practical retention and recruitment strategies organizations can use to protect and strengthen their future talent pipeline.
Presenters
- Altara Weiland
Director, Partnerships
Clasp
2:00 – 2:15 p.m. Break
2:00 – 2:15 p.m. Break
2:15 – 3:15 p.m. Education - Synthetic Talent: Why Your Next Recruiter Might Be AI
2:15 – 3:15 p.m. Education
Synthetic Talent: Why Your Next Recruiter Might Be AI
We’ve built synthetic humans—AI agents that think, reason, and make hiring decisions the way your best recruiters do. They don’t follow scripts. They handle objections. They learn from experience. They make judgment calls on culture fit. This session decodes how synthetic intelligence works in healthcare recruiting, shows live examples of agents solving your hardest problems, and walks you through real deployments at leading health systems. You’ll walk out with a customized hypothesis and bootcamp roadmap printed and ready to present to your team.
Objectives
How Synthetic Humans Actually Work (And Why They’re Different From Task Automation): Understand the architecture behind synthetic agents—how they’re trained on human recruiting logic, why they make judgment calls instead of following scripts, and where they outperform traditional automation in healthcare hiring. We’ll show you real examples: a sourcing agent that understands culture fit signals, a screening agent that assesses soft skills like empathy and resilience, and a hiring manager coach that gives nuanced feedback on candidate potential vs. experience trade-offs. By the end, you’ll know exactly where synthetic intelligence changes outcomes in your hiring process.
The Real Wins and Honest Limitations (So You Can Pilot With Confidence): Synthetic humans aren’t a silver bullet. We’ll walk through proven healthcare deployments—time-to-fill reductions, recruiter hours saved, quality improvements—and show you where they work best and where human judgment still matters most. You’ll leave knowing which role families benefit most, what 30-day bootcamp looks like, and the exact metrics that prove ROI so you can pitch this to your CFO without overselling.
Your Customized Roadmap to Deploy Synthetic Agents in 90 Days: Every organization gets a printed hypothesis and hypercell framework built around your highest-leverage opportunity. You’ll walk out knowing: which talent challenge to tackle first, what your 30-day bootcamp would look like, what success metrics matter, and how to staff the engagement so your team stays involved and learns as you go. No generic plans—this is built for your system.
Presenters
- Becky Lubitz
Strategic Sales Consultant
Phenom - Andrea Wilczynski-Urbaniak
Director, Healthcare
Phenom - Luke Carignan
The ASHHRA Podcast Co-Host
Senior Strategic Director, Healthcare AI, Phenom
3:15 – 3:30 p.m. Break
3:15 – 3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 – 4:00 p.m. Debrief Topics, Open Forum
3:30 – 4:00 p.m. Debrief Topics, Open Forum
4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Mental Refresh
4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Mental Refresh
6:00 p.m. Walk to Dinner | Meet at hotel lobby
6:00 p.m. Walk to Dinner | Meet at hotel lobby
6:15 – 8:30 p.m. Dinner
6:15 – 8:30 p.m. Dinner | Morton’s The Steakhouse
Morton’s The Steakhouse
618 Church St
Nashville, TN 37219
Directions from Placemakr Premier SoBro to Morton’s The Steakhouse
Enjoy dinner with your fellow attendees and sponsors at Morton’s The Steakhouse, located approximately 0.7 mils from the hotel.
Friday, July 24
8:30 - 9:00 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:00 - 10:00 a.m. Roundtable Discussion
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Roundtable Discussion
10:00 - 10:30 a.m. Final Comments/Adjourn
10:00 – 10:30 a.m. Final Comments/Adjourn
SPONSORS
FAQs
Who is eligible to apply for the summit?
All practitioner healthcare HR talent acquisition executives and leaders are encouraged to apply. ASHHRA receives many qualified applicants and ASHHRA’s goal is to diversify the attendee pool. Selection will be based on geographic location, system/organization, region/market, and site/location. Preference will be given to ASHHRA members.
If I applied for and/or attended a previous summit, can I apply again?
If you applied for and/or attended a previous summit, you have already been identified as a high-value healthcare HR professional. You are encouraged to apply to attend again and/or refer a colleague. However, given the limited number of available spots and our desire to engage a diverse pool of executives and thought leaders, an invitation to attend is not guaranteed.
Can I apply if a colleague at my organization also applied?
Yes, we encourage all interested healthcare HR practitioners to apply.
Who will be in attendance?
Expect an intimate group of 20 to 24 of your fellow healthcare HR leaders. Attendees will be joined by ASHHRA staff and representatives from sponsoring companies.
What is the attendee experience like?
Attendees will be hosted at a high-end hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, where much of the summit programming will also take place. The event will begin with a welcome reception on the first night, one followed by dinner. Day two will consist of networking, roundtables, sponsored education with meals, and dinner. The event will conclude on day three over breakfast to give attendees one more opportunity to connect with final discussions.
What are the benefits of attending?
The summit is a unique opportunity to take a brief break from your daily routine while growing your professional connections in the electrifying city of Nashville. As a previous attendee put it, the summit is a “great opportunity to network with peers and truly problem solve with ideas for solutions back home.”
How are accommodations handled?
ASHHRA will make reservations for all selected participants at the host hotel and cover room and tax for two nights – Wednesday and Thursday.
Attendees have the option to extend their stay beyond the two nights covered by ASHHRA. Additional nights will be the responsibility of each guest. Should any guest wish to take advantage of this option, it can be indicated in the Travel and Housing Form, which is provided by ASHHRA to selected participants.
If I am selected to attend, what expenses are covered by ASHHRA?
- HOTEL: ASHHRA will make reservations for all selected participants at The Placemakr SoBro and cover room and tax for two nights – Wednesday and Thursday. Attendees have the option to extend their stay beyond the two nights covered by ASHHRA. Additional nights will be the responsibility of each guest. Should any guest wish to take advantage of this option, it can be indicated in the Travel and Housing Form, which is provided by ASHHRA to each selected participant.
- MEALS: All meals will be provided beginning with the welcome reception on the first day to the breakfast on the third day (see Schedule at a Glance). ASHHRA does not reimburse for any other meals.
- TRAVEL: ASHHRA will cover up to $500 for airfare, ground transportation, parking, etc. Attendees will be provided with an expense reimbursement form for travel expenses.
Attendees will be responsible for all other incidentals beyond these covered expenses.
Can I extend my stay?
Yes, you have the option to extend your stay at host hotel. The summit is adjacent to a weekend, giving attendees an opportunity to extend their visit before or after the event. The hotel will make every effort to accommodate these extensions, including offering the group rate, however, this is not guaranteed. If you would like to extend your stay beyond the two nights covered by ASHHRA, you may do so when making your hotel reservations via the link provided by ASHHRA.
What is the recommended attire?
Recommended attire is business casual along with comfortable walking shoes. Layers are recommended as the temperature may fluctuate in the event rooms.