Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Neville Gupta · Compunnel Healthcare · August 2026
Staffing is bought inside a facility, not inside a company, and the buying seats sit in far more places than the hospital. This map covers the US settings that hire the lines you staff, who signs inside each one, and roughly how many sites are there. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Hospitals and health systems
The segment everyone works, and the hardest to enter cold, because contingent labor usually runs through a vendor list and a managed program before it ever reaches a unit. Winning the list and winning the requisition are two different sales at two different times of year.
Who signs: chief nursing officer, VP of talent acquisition, director of nursing, contingent labor or workforce manager, and unit directors on urgent fills.
6,000 to 6,200
registered US hospitals, operated by roughly 400 to 450 health systems that increasingly buy centrally
Skilled nursing and long-term care
Chronic vacancy rather than seasonal spike, and a survey finding can turn a staffing gap into a funded emergency inside a week. Corporate chains buy centrally; independents buy at the building, which makes this two audiences wearing one label.
Who signs: administrator, director of nursing, regional VP of operations, corporate HR at the chains, owner at the independents.
14,500 to 15,500
certified US nursing facilities; a substantial share sit inside multi-site groups
Home health and hospice
Growing faster than the settings above and structurally short of clinicians, because the work is dispersed and the census moves weekly. Decisions are made close to the ground, with fewer people between the need and the signature.
Who signs: agency administrator, clinical director, staffing coordinator, owner-operator.
11,000 to 12,000
certified US home health agencies, plus roughly 5,500 to 6,000 hospices
Ambulatory surgery and outpatient clinics
Short procedures, tight schedules and no tolerance for an unfilled shift, so an allied or perioperative gap gets solved quickly rather than debated. The registered surgery center count below understates the segment, because the wider physician clinic layer is far larger and buys the same roles.
Who signs: administrator, clinical director, practice manager, VP of ambulatory operations.
5,800 to 6,200
certified US ambulatory surgery centers; the outpatient clinic layer behind them runs to tens of thousands of sites
Behavioral health and substance use treatment
The fastest growing demand for licensed clinicians and the least worked by traditional staffing reach. Licensing rules differ by state, so the fill is harder, which is precisely why an agency that can do it holds the relationship for years.
Who signs: executive director, clinical director, HR lead, owner-operator, regional director at the groups.
12,000 to 14,000
licensed US mental health and substance use treatment facilities
Pharma, biotech and clinical research employers
A different business entirely, bought by a different function on a project clock rather than a shift clock. A trial start, a submission or a site expansion creates a defined block of demand with a known end date, which suits contract placement well.
Who signs: head of clinical operations, R&D resourcing lead, talent acquisition, procurement for contingent labor.
3,000 to 3,500
US employers registered across pharmaceutical, biotechnology and contract research

Where the openings are

1
The seat that feels the gap is not the seat that controls the list. A nurse leader knows the unit is short today. A procurement or workforce manager decides which suppliers are allowed to answer. Getting onto the list and winning the requisition are separate sales, worked on separate calendars, and most staffing reach only ever addresses one of them.
2
Demand is event-driven, and the events are visible from outside. A unit opening, a census spike, a survey finding, a contract renewal, a posting that has been live for sixty days. Watching several thousand facilities for those signals is mechanical work, and it is the difference between arriving during the problem and arriving after the order was placed.
3
The non-hospital settings outnumber hospitals by roughly eight to one. Nursing homes, home health and hospice, outpatient surgery and behavioral health together run to somewhere between 49,000 and 54,000 registered sites, against 6,000 to 6,200 hospitals. They have fewer gatekeepers, shorter decisions and less competition from national programs, and they are the band that relationship reach covers last.
4
Four service lines do not share one buyer. Nursing sits with the chief nursing officer, allied sits with department leadership, medical administration sits with HR, and pharma and life sciences sits with clinical operations. That is four named audiences with four different messages, not one list sent four times.
Built from public registries, counts banded deliberately. Counts describe registered or certified sites rather than buying units, and a health system or a corporate chain may buy centrally for many of them. Facility categories are as reported to the registers.
ENQUIRER CONSULTING GROUP
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