Shaping the Future of Healthcare Workforce: A Leadership Forum
Date: 7/23/26
Location:
Essentia Health
3000 32nd Avenue S
Fargo, ND
This in-person event is free to attend for NDHA and HSI members.
Overview:
This leadership forum brings together healthcare executives, HR leaders, and clinical decision-makers to explore today’s most pressing workforce challenges, including shortages, burnout, financial pressures, and shifting care delivery models.
Discussions will focus on:
-Moving beyond reactive staffing toward strategic, data-driven solutions
-Strengthening culture, trust, collaboration, and long-term workforce resilience
-Examining operational alignment, technology, governance, allied health shortages, state-specific insights, and peer-led strategies
Agenda:
8:00 AM – 9:00 AM
Registration and Networking Breakfast
Begin the day by checking in and enjoying a light breakfast. Meet healthcare leaders from across North Dakota and connect with HR and clinical staff facing similar workforce challenges.
9:00 AM – 9:05 AM
Welcome Remarks
Representatives from the North Dakota Hospital Association and Medical Solutions will open the event with a welcome message and an overview of the goals for the day: collaboration, innovation, and practical solutions for advancing the workforce.
9:05 AM – 10:30 AM
Keynote Session: Trust is the Strategy: Building Cohesion to Drive Collective Performance
As hospitals across North Dakota confront workforce shortages, burnout, shrinking margins, and evolving care models, leaders face unprecedented pressure. This moment will not be solved by stronger individual performance, but by stronger collective performance. The question is not how hard one leader can push—but how to deliberately cultivate a cohesive culture built on trust – the foundation of every high-performing team.
This interactive session convenes C-suite executives, HR leaders, and clinical administrators to objectively re-examine workplace culture—the driver of behavior, performance, and retention. Leaders will identify actionable recruitment and retention strategies and gain practical troubleshooting tactics for human resources issues that they can implement immediately. Participants will leave with a clear understanding that the culture they create today will determine the workforce they have tomorrow.
Speaker: Kathleen Bartholomew
10:30 – 10:45 AM
Morning Break
10:45 AM – 11:45 AM
Stabilizing the Healthcare Workforce: From Crisis Response to Long-Term Strategy
Healthcare workforce challenges are no longer temporary disruptions; they represent a permanent shift in how labor must be structured, managed, and optimized. This session explores how healthcare organizations can move beyond reactive staffing decisions and toward a sustainable, system-based workforce strategy. Attendees will examine the key drivers of workforce instability and learn how aligning workforce design, technology, data, governance, and operational execution can improve flexibility, financial performance, and long-term workforce resilience.
Speaker: Erin MacKenzie (Vice President, Solution Engineering, Medical Solutions)
11:45 AM – 1:00 PM
Networking Lunch
Take advantage of your lunch break to build connections with peers and partners. Whether you’re from administration, HR, or clinical leadership, this is a chance to strengthen collaboration across hospital functions.
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Beyond Nursing: Why Allied Staffing is Now an Operational Imperative
Allied workforce shortages are no longer isolated staffing challenges. They are becoming major drivers of operational disruption across healthcare systems. From imaging and
laboratory services to respiratory therapy and rehabilitation, allied professionals directly influence patient throughput, length of stay, care progression, and financial performance. In this discussion, we’ll uncover why allied staffing has become one of the most critical yet often overlooked constraints within healthcare operations and how
organizations can build more effective workforce strategies to improve speed, flexibility, and operational stability.
Attendees will examine the structural realities shaping the Allied labor market, including growing demand, limited training pipelines, specialty-specific skill requirements,
and increasing market fragmentation. The session will also highlight practical strategies healthcare organizations can use to reduce hiring friction, improve fill success, strengthen workforce partnerships, and better align operational decision-making with real market conditions.
Speaker: Matthew Neal, Vice President of Allied Health, Medical Solutions
2:00 PM – 2:15 PM
Afternoon Refreshment Break
2:15 PM – 3:15 PM
North Dakota-Specific Workforce Discussion
Topics will include legislative advocacy, grant funding, staff wellness programs, and hospital association initiatives supporting recruitment and retention.
3:15 – 4:00 PM
Closing Roundtable and Action Planning
All participants will regroup to reflect on the day, identify common themes, and outline action steps for applying what they’ve learned. The session will conclude with shared commitments and suggestions for continued peer collaboration.
4:00 PM
Closing Remarks and Adjournment
Final comments from NDHA and Medical Solutions leadership to summarize key takeaways and encourage future partnership in workforce development efforts.
Speakers:
Kathleen Bartholomew
Before turning to healthcare as a career in 1994, Kathleen Bartholomew held positions in marketing, business, communications and teaching. It was these experiences that allowed her to look at the culture of healthcare from a unique perspective and speak poignantly to the issues affecting providers and the challenges facing health care organizations today.
Kathleen Bartholomew, RN, MN has been a national speaker for the past 13 years. For her Master’s Thesis she authored “Speak Your Truth: Proven Strategies for Effective Nurse-Physician Communication”. In 2010 she was nominated by Health Leaders Media as one of the top 20 people changing healthcare in America, specifically for calling attention to the impact of disruptive behavior on patient care, and the need for better physician-nurse communication.
In December of 2005, Kathleen resigned her position as manager of a 57 bed orthopedic and spine unit in order to write, “Ending Nurse to Nurse Hostility” (2006) which offered the first comprehensive and compassionate look at the etiology, impact and solutions of horizontal violence on patients as well as the profession of Nursing.
Kathleen’s passion for creating healthy work environments is infectious. As a guest Op Ed writer for The Seattle Times, Kathleen is a outspoken consumer advocate; and as a guest on NPR’s “The People’s Pharmacy” she calls for rapid improvement in hospital safety. As a health care culture expert, Kathleen speaks internationally to hospital boards, the military, senior leadership and staff about patient safety, communication, leadership and power. With her husband, John J. Nance, she co-authored, “Charting the Course: Launching Patient-Centric Healthcare” in 2012 which is the sequel to “Why Hospitals Should Fly” 2008. From the bedside to the boardroom Kathleen applies research to practice with humor and an ethical call to excellence that ignites and inspires health caregivers and leaders to unprecedented levels of excellence.
Erin McKenzie
Erin MacKenzie is Vice President of Solution Engineering at Medical Solutions, where she leads strategic workforce and technology initiatives focused on helping healthcare organizations build more adaptive, sustainable workforce models. With more than 20 years of experience across workforce solutions, staffing technology, operations, and client services, Erin brings a unique blend of industry expertise and operational insight to healthcare workforce transformation efforts.
Prior to joining Medical Solutions, she held leadership roles with organizations including Bullhorn, erecruit, Newbury Partners, ADP, and Paychex, where she specialized in workforce optimization, staffing best practices, client strategy, and enterprise technology solutions. She is also the co-host of Highly Adaptive, a podcast focused on helping leaders and organizations respond to change with a more proactive and adaptive mindset. Erin is recognized for her ability to connect workforce strategy, technology, and operational execution to drive meaningful business outcomes and long-term organizational resilience.
Matthew Neal
Matthew Neel is Vice President of Allied Health at Medical Solutions, where he leads a team of more than 100 recruiters and operational leaders across multiple Allied Health divisions. With more than two decades of experience in healthcare workforce solutions, Matthew specializes in Allied workforce strategy, operational performance, recruiting optimization, and organizational scalability. He partners closely with executive leadership to align workforce strategy, operational execution, and market realities in an increasingly constrained talent environment.
Prior to his current position, Matthew spent more than 17 years with Aureus Medical Group in progressive leadership roles overseeing Allied sales, recruiting, and operations. Throughout his career, he has led initiatives focused on workforce specialization, placement efficiency, margin improvement, and operational consistency across Allied healthcare staffing. Known for his practical operational insight and deep understanding of the Allied labor market, Matthew brings a strategic perspective on how healthcare organizations can better navigate workforce shortages, improve throughput, and strengthen long-term staffing stability.
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