AMN Healthcare is the largest healthcare staffing and workforce planning firm and a proven leader in developing innovative solutions for recruiting, managing, strategic planning, and optimizing the healthcare workforce. With the most comprehensive workforce offerings in the US, the organization has unparalleled access to the country’s largest and most diverse network of healthcare professionals. Founded in 1985, AMN Healthcare is a strategic partner, providing state-of-the-art sourcing strategies and resources to help its clients increase efficiency, reduce complexity, and improve the patient experience. Its customers include acute-care hospitals, community health centers and clinics, physician practice groups, retail and urgent care centers, home health facilities, and many other healthcare settings.
A Leader Driven by Innovation
Ms. Susan Salka is the CEO and President of AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. In the healthcare and investment community, Susan is an active industry spokesperson and has been one of the driving forces behind the strategic and operational success of AMN since joining the company in 1990. Under her leadership, AMN became a known name in the world of healthcare workforce solutions and is now the largest and most diversified healthcare staffing company in the country. Prior to her appointment as CEO of the company, Susan served in several other executive positions, including CFO, COO, and SVP of business development. Additionally, she serves on the board of directors of McKesson, The Campanile Foundation at San Diego State University and on the editorial advisory board of Directors and Boards magazine. She has previously served on other public company boards, including Beckman Coulter and Playtex Products.
Susan also plays an active part helping others to achieve personal and professional goals. She is aware of the need to promote the value of women in leadership and the importance of community service. She was recognized twice as San Diego’s Most Admired Public Company CEO and has received various industry and business awards, including the Exemplary Award at San Diego Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business Awards in 2011, and Woman of the Year by San Diego Magazine. She was also recently named to the Staffing Industry Analyst inaugural Staffing Hall of Fame.
She started working for AMN when it was a nurse staffing company called American Mobile Nurses. With only 19 team members, Susan joined as the company’s first Chief Financial Officer. As she often jokes, it was really the role of a glorified bookkeeper, but she enjoyed the challenge. Soon the company began to grow rapidly, and Susan expanded her career alongside the enterprise. She began taking new responsibilities, including IT, marketing, operations, legal and sales. Eventually, she advanced into the COO, then the President, and now the CEO of the company. During her 27 year tenure with the company, AMN has acquired over 20 companies. Additionally, she helped the company go public on the NYSE and managed the organization through economic downturns as well as growth stages.
At AMN, the Team is the Best Asset
The AMN Healthcare team is the organization’s best asset. The hard work, innovation, and execution of the organization’s nearly 3,000 team members has guided its success. According to Susan, anyone can have a good idea, and many can come up with good strategic planning surrounding those ideas. But one hasn’t accomplished anything until one can move those ideas forward through solid execution. This is where the team at AMN excels, often implementing strategic priorities that meet or exceed objectives.
Healthcare: An Arena with Incredible Growth Potential
The human resource function within healthcare is growing rapidly, thanks to market drivers such as an aging global population, retirement surges for healthcare professionals and the ongoing shortage of clinicians. Many healthcare organizations are also realizing the importance of recruiting the right candidates and engaging them in their work. They understand that employee retention and recruitment are vital to the organization as people are often a company’s best asset.
Many healthcare organization are focused on providing quality patient care and often opt to partner with a staffing expert like AMN Healthcare to support their human resource function. Healthcare facilities that choose to partner with AMN benefit from the company’s expertise in recruiting, managing, strategic planning, allowing the healthcare facility and their clinicians to instead focus on providing great patient care.
Bright Days Ahead
Susan believes one of the most important ingredients to the success of AMN Healthcare is the way the company engages clients in finding innovative solutions to their staffing challenges. The organization prides itself on anticipating client needs and bringing solutions forward in real time.
The healthcare workforce has always been faced with clinician shortages and this trend only looks to continue given the scarcity of healthcare professionals, quick retirements among the experienced and specialty practitioners, and growing demands due to the aging population and the improving economy. Healthcare service providers will soon need more help in hiring and optimizing their workforce. AMN Healthcare provides the most advanced staffing tools available and is now quite busy developing new services. At the same time, the organization is expanding its managed services program and the recruitment services offerings in order to provide the broadest and most diverse portfolio of workforce solutions in the healthcare industry, and to deliver greater value to their client now and in the future.