A nurse applies for a new position at 1 a.m. on a Friday. In most hiring processes, that application waits until Monday morning, and by then the nurse may have moved on. At Supplemental Health Care (SHC), that same nurse now hears back within minutes.
That shift is one of many explored in the latest episode of the SHC Insight Series, where host Alex Acton sits down with Simon Curtis, SHC’s Chief Digital Officer, to talk about AI in healthcare hiring. The conversation covers what AI actually is, where it is changing the daily work of nurses and recruiters, and why SHC’s high-tech, high-touch philosophy matters more now than ever.
As Simon puts it, “AI is just technology.” The real question is what experience that technology creates for the people on the other end.
Meet the Host and Guest
Alex Acton, Vice President of Marketing and Communication at Supplemental Health Care, hosts the SHC Insight Series. He brings a communications background and years of experience in recruitment technology, along with a hands-on enthusiasm for putting new AI tools to work.
Simon Curtis is SHC’s Chief Digital Officer. A UK native, he spent nearly 20 years in the staffing industry, mostly with the Adecco Group, where he served as CIO of Adecco UK and later as CIO for the Americas. He moved to the United States in 2019 and joined Supplemental Health Care four years ago, where he leads the company’s work to solve hiring challenges with technology.
What We Mean When We Say AI
Simon opens with a point that gets lost in many AI conversations. Strictly speaking, AI is technology that can learn, but the label gets applied to almost everything, down to spellcheck in some sales pitches. Large language models have become mainstream only in the last couple of years, while SHC has been on its AI journey much longer, using machine learning and automation to help its teams make better use of data and eliminate tasks that add no value.
What has changed is the removal of friction. Alex describes using AI tools to turn a rough sketch into a working data visualization that once would have required a specialist and weeks of effort. Simon sees the same thing in software development, where AI coding tools have improved dramatically in the past six months, letting SHC build better experiences for talent, clients, and employees much faster.
That speed comes with a caution. When friction disappears, so does a natural check on bad ideas. Simon’s example: if SHC and its competitors could suddenly call a candidate a thousand times a day, the friction that once prevented it is gone, but the bad experience would be very real. The same goes for a 100-page presentation that took a minute to generate but someone still has to read. “We need to be very, very careful about what the unintended consequences might be,” he says.
Adoption is moving fast. According to Gallup, 52% of U.S. employees used AI in their role at least a few times a year as of May 2026, and 47% said their organization had integrated AI tools. Yet only 25% said their organization had communicated a clear plan for integrating AI. That gap is exactly why Simon and Alex keep returning to the same principle: start with the experience you are trying to create, then work backward to the technology.
Where AI Is Changing Healthcare Work
Simon is quick to say he is not a clinician, but the healthcare professionals he talks with share a common frustration: the sheer volume of paperwork. That is where AI is making its biggest difference, not at the bedside.
Research backs that up. In its 2025 AI at Work report, Indeed’s Hiring Lab found nursing among the roles most shielded from generative AI, because the core of the work depends on physical presence, empathy, and human judgment. What AI can change is the administrative load around that core.
Documentation is the clearest example. Nurses spend between 23% and 40% of a 12-hour shift documenting care, and KLAS Research found that 79% of acute care nurses lose time each week to unproductive charting. Nurses who lose three or more hours a week to that kind of charting are also more likely to say they plan to leave their organization (34%, compared with 20% of those who lose less than an hour).
Ambient AI documentation, which listens during care and drafts notes for the clinician to review, is starting to give some of that time back. A 2026 study of one health system’s medical-surgical units found 20.6 minutes of recoverable time per 12-hour shift once ambient capture reached 60% or more, with a projected ceiling of 36.3 minutes if the best-performing unit’s results were achieved system-wide.
As Alex points out, nobody describes their ideal nurse as someone who is great at sitting down and entering data into a screen. Every minute returned to patient care matters, especially as HRSA projects an 8% national shortage of registered nurses in 2028 and a much steeper shortage in rural areas, where the gap is projected at 11% in 2038 compared with 2% in metro areas.
Simon sees the same pattern in staffing. Recruiters do not want to spend their days clicking through systems and duplicating effort. They want to talk to nurses and clients, because that is what they love. The goal of AI in both settings is the same: remove the administrative burden so people can focus on the work that matters most.
AI in Hiring and the 1 a.m. Application
Simon walks through a scenario already running at SHC. A nurse applies for a job at 1 a.m. Without technology, that application would sit until a recruiter picked it up on Monday morning. With voice AI screening, the nurse gets an immediate response thanking them for applying and asking whether they are comfortable answering a few more questions with an AI agent. If they agree, the conversation captures the information needed to move their application forward.
Simon is clear about what the AI does and does not do. “It’s not making any decisions,” he explains. “It’s just capturing information.” Once that information is in hand, SHC’s recruiters decide whether the role is the right fit and talk with the candidate about it, and if it is not the right job, they help find one that is. Simon says engagement has improved, and most candidates are comfortable speaking with the AI screener because it makes applying easier.
Outside research points in a similar direction. In a Chicago Booth field experiment involving more than 70,000 applicants, candidates interviewed by an AI voice agent were 12% more likely to receive a job offer and 18% more likely to start the job than those interviewed by human recruiters. Humans reviewed every interview and made every hiring decision. The study covered entry-level customer service roles, not clinical positions, so the results are a signal rather than a direct comparison.
Candidate attitudes explain why the human role still matters. A Gartner survey found that only 26% of job candidates trust AI to evaluate them fairly, and 25% trust an employer less when it uses AI to evaluate them. At the same time, 53% of job seekers were ghosted by an employer in the past year, according to Criteria’s 2026 Candidate Experience Report. Candidates welcome speed and convenience. What they do not want is to be judged by a machine or ignored by a person.
Alex sums up what candidates across industries have said for years: they are happy to use any technology that gets them answers on their schedule, from start dates to parking details. What they want from a human being is help when something goes wrong, when they have a real question, or when they need someone to pick up the phone.
High Tech, High Touch: More Relevant Than Ever
SHC’s high-tech, high-touch strategy was in place before Simon arrived, and he recently told the company it could never be more relevant than it is today. The idea is simple: use technology to remove wasted time and effort, then reinvest that time in people. “We’re a people business,” Simon says, and AI should give recruiters and sales teams more time with talent and clients.
Does that mean AI will take over recruiting roles? “Absolutely not,” Simon says. Eventually, every company will have access to the same tools. What will separate organizations is how they implement them, and whether that implementation creates better experiences for talent, clients, and employees.
Implementation is also where things can go wrong. Simon describes a candidate who has a great experience with an AI screener, feels good about the job, and then never hears from a recruiter. That candidate ends up with a worse experience than if the AI had never been involved. The technology is only as good as the handoff to the people behind it, and bad processes or bad data will undermine even the best tools.
The conversation closes on a lighter but important note: authenticity. Simon now drafts slides and emails by talking through his ideas with AI, which helps him get past the blank page, but the ideas are still his. He scrolls past LinkedIn posts that are obviously AI-generated. “I wanna hear what Alex has got to say,” he explains, not what Alex’s AI tool has to say. Alex shares a similar story, recalling how he once built an 80-slide deck with Copilot in minutes, saving about four hours. The tools are powerful. The perspective still has to come from the person using them.
Listen and Connect
The full episode includes more from Simon and Alex, including the “there is no spoon” mindset SHC’s technology leaders use when testing what AI can do, and a nod to Wharton professor Ethan Mollick’s idea of AI’s “jagged frontier.”
Find the SHC Insight Series on YouTube at SHC Cares or on your favorite podcast platform, and subscribe so you do not miss upcoming episodes.
If you are working through healthcare or education hiring challenges, contact Supplemental Health Care to talk about how our high-tech, high-touch approach can help.
FAQ
How is AI being used in healthcare hiring right now?
AI is being used across the hiring process, from screening and candidate communication to voice-based screening conversations. At Supplemental Health Care, voice AI responds to applications immediately, even at 1 a.m., and captures information conversationally so recruiters can follow up with a complete picture of the candidate.
Does AI replace human recruiters?
No. At SHC, AI captures information and removes administrative work, while recruiters make the decisions and guide candidates. Outside research supports keeping people in charge: in a Chicago Booth field experiment with more than 70,000 applicants, humans reviewed every AI-led interview and made every hiring decision.
How much time can AI save nurses on documentation?
A 2026 study of one health system’s medical-surgical units found ambient AI documentation could recover 20.6 minutes per 12-hour shift once ambient capture reached 60% or more, with a projected ceiling of 36.3 minutes. Because documentation can take up 23% to 40% of a shift, that time adds up.
Do job candidates trust AI in the hiring process?
Not fully. A Gartner survey found only 26% of candidates trust AI to evaluate them fairly. Candidates do value fast, convenient responses, which is why SHC uses AI to speed up the process while keeping people responsible for decisions and relationships.
What is Supplemental Health Care’s approach to AI in recruiting?
SHC follows a high-tech, high-touch philosophy. AI removes administrative burden and reduces wait times for candidates, while recruiters stay at the center of relationships, advice, and every meaningful hiring decision.
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