The U.S. healthcare system will face many shortages of medical workers by 2035. There will be about 10% fewer primary care doctors, which is around 48,000 missing. Specialists will be short by 7.5%, making the total gap about 86,000 doctors. Nurses will be short by 6%, or 250,000 fewer registered nurses. Rural and nonmetro areas may have shortages as high as 60%, which will make access to care very hard in those communities.
This problem happens because people are getting older, many healthcare workers are tired or quitting, and there are not enough new workers joining the field. More people will need care, but old ways of hiring and giving care will not be enough in the future.
Healthcare organizations need to plan for how they will use AI from 2025 to 2035 and later. The timeline has three main parts.
Between 2025 and 2027, Generative AI will start to be used quickly to help with both clinical work and office tasks. AI will mainly help with:
John Engerholm, a healthcare AI expert, says that Generative AI is not a cure-all, but it helps doctors work better and see more patients. At this stage, AI will let healthcare workers spend more time with patients by taking over routine tasks.
Practice managers can use AI tools for appointment scheduling and patient communication to reduce missed visits and make workflow easier. By 2027, these AI systems will be common in clinics and hospital offices, helping reduce office work.
From 2028 to 2030, AI will move beyond office tasks and start helping with clinical decisions by using FDA-approved tools. These include:
Senthil Ravindran says these FDA-approved AI tools are an important step in making healthcare AI reliable and widely used. This phase changes AI from doing simple tasks to assisting with complex medical decisions.
IT managers in healthcare will need to update their systems to include AI in electronic medical records and imaging. They must keep data safe, make sure systems work together, and help doctors accept AI tools.
Between 2031 and 2035, healthcare will change a lot with AI helping run entire care systems remotely. These systems will use:
Pablo Diaz says AI will not replace doctors but will help them focus on patients by handling routine tasks, which will make care better and more fair for people who usually have less access.
New technologies like 5G combined with AI and connected devices will allow fast, reliable communication needed for remote diagnosis and treatment. This will help make healthcare more available and responsive.
Practice owners and managers should get their systems ready and train staff to work with AI-assisted care models to keep good quality and compete well in the future.
One of the fastest ways AI helps healthcare is by automating front-office work. Tasks like scheduling, patient intake, paperwork, billing, and communication take a lot of time. AI can help by:
Using AI in front office reduces work that tires providers and staff. This lets healthcare workers spend more time caring for patients and coordinating their treatment.
IT staff need to make sure AI tools work with current hospital systems and keep patient data safe and private.
One big reason to use AI is to lower pressure on doctors and nurses. Many healthcare workers leave their jobs because they are worn out. AI helps by:
By making work easier and less stressful, AI helps keep healthcare workers happy and on the job, especially in busy fields and places with few staff. Some estimates say AI could cut workforce shortages by 20–40% in the next ten years.
Rural areas in the U.S. will have the biggest shortages of healthcare providers, with up to 60% fewer workers by 2035. AI offers ways to help these places by:
John Engerholm says generative AI helps community health workers in tough areas give better care even when few specialists are nearby. This fits with goals to improve care and access in rural clinics.
Even with many benefits, healthcare groups must handle AI carefully and face these challenges:
Managers should involve doctors early when planning to use AI so that the tools are easy to use and accepted. Training and managing change well will also be needed for success.
The timeline shows that healthcare groups in the U.S. cannot wait to start using AI if they want to keep up and provide good care. Medical office managers, owners, and IT leaders should focus on:
Using AI early will help healthcare workers handle shortages, reduce burnout, and improve patient care for years to come.
Between 2025 and 2035, healthcare will change a lot as AI moves from doing simple office jobs to helping run complex care systems. Healthcare managers in the U.S. need to know this timeline to keep operations running well and make sure patients get good care even with fewer workers.
The U.S. is expected to face a 10% shortfall in primary care physicians (~48,000), a 7.5% shortage in specialists contributing to up to 86,000 physician gap, a 6% nursing shortage (~250,000 RNs), and rural/nonmetro areas may experience shortages as high as 60% by 2035.
AI and generative AI support providers by reducing administrative tasks, enhancing clinical workflows, automating routine documentation, assisting diagnostics and imaging triage, extending care reach through multilingual and context-aware guidance, thus improving efficiency, reducing burnout, and increasing capacity to help close workforce gaps.
AI tools provide multilingual, context-aware guidance to healthcare workers, especially in rural or resource-limited settings, helping to bridge language barriers, improve patient communication, and enhance decision support for diverse populations.
By automating routine tasks such as documentation and follow-ups, AI reduces administrative burdens that contribute to provider fatigue. This alleviation of workload helps improve staff retention, particularly in high-stress or underserved environments.
Key areas include administrative relief through automated note-taking and report drafting, clinical augmentation with diagnostic assistance and imaging triage, burnout reduction by automating routine work, and education/support by providing multilingual guidance and decision support.
Between 2025-2027, rapid GenAI adoption for clinical and admin workflows will occur; 2028-2030 will see FDA-approved AI diagnostic and clinical tools augmenting specialists; by 2031-2035, seamless AI-augmented care ecosystems with telehealth and remote monitoring will emerge, further closing provider gaps.
Proactive adoption allows timely system and process redesign, and infrastructure investments, positioning healthcare providers to deliver high-quality, accessible care efficiently in a resource-constrained future while gaining competitive advantage.
No, AI is viewed as a tool to augment clinicians rather than replace them. It enables providers to focus more on human aspects of care by handling administrative and routine tasks reliably.
The challenge lies in creating AI solutions clinicians trust to perform reliably during chaotic clinical situations, requiring transparency, accuracy, validation, and seamless integration into existing workflows.
Multilingual AI agents provide culturally and linguistically appropriate guidance and decision support to healthcare workers in rural and resource-limited areas, thereby expanding care accessibility and improving patient outcomes despite provider shortages.
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