Healthcare Staffing Shortage — and Why Paper Processes Make It Worse
We talk about workforce shortages. About missing doctors, overburdened nursing teams and closed wards. At the same time, qualified professionals are waiting — for contracts, stamps, forms and signatures.
Part of the shortage does not originate in the labour market. It originates in our processes.
The Numbers Paint a Clear Picture
Switzerland
Switzerland is heading towards a massive care gap. According to the national supply report, the country will be short of up to 43,000 qualified nurses by 2030. Today, between 13,000 and 15,000 nursing positions remain unfilled. The Federal Office of Public Health puts the current shortfall at roughly 65,000 nursing professionals. Particularly alarming: nearly one in five qualified nurses is thinking about leaving the profession.
While the general skilled worker shortage in Switzerland has eased slightly, healthcare remains the hardest-hit sector. The volume of job postings in healthcare recruitment rose by 13 per cent year-on-year in 2025.
Europe
The view across the border reveals a similar picture. Across Europe, an estimated 1.6 million health and social care workers are currently missing. By 2030, this number could swell to 4 million — including 600,000 doctors, 2.3 million nurses and 1.1 million social care workers.
An ageing workforce compounds the problem: over a third of all doctors and a quarter of all nurses in the EU are aged over 55. New entrants cannot keep pace with departures.
A Real-World Example
A hospital urgently needs doctors. The candidates are there. The contracts are ready. But before anyone can start, a signature is missing.
For the doctor, this means: travelling to the office, waiting, signing, travelling back. One hour — for a single signature.
For the staffing agency, this means: printing the document, scanning it back, checking the OCR output, correcting errors manually, filing it away. 20 to 30 minutes per contract.
With 50 doctors per month, that adds up to over 20 hours of internal effort — and 50 hours of lost doctor time. In a market where every professional counts.
The Invisible Problem: Bureaucracy as a Bottleneck
The staffing shortage has many causes — demographic change, difficult working conditions, unattractive pay, burnout. These structural problems cannot be solved overnight. But there are levers that work immediately. The administrative onboarding process is one of them.
Every day a contract waits for a signature is a day a ward remains understaffed. Every hour a professional spends travelling for a signature is an hour not spent with patients.
Credential Recognition for Foreign Professionals
A particularly critical bottleneck affects international professionals. Highly qualified doctors and nurses from abroad often face lengthy recognition procedures. In Switzerland, the initial review alone takes up to four weeks — provided all documents are complete. Professionals from non-EU countries face stricter rules and additional examinations.
When the administrative process around credential recognition is paper-based, waiting times grow further. Every missing document, every illegible copy, every postal delivery costs days — sometimes weeks.
The Real Challenge: Digitalization Across Organisational Boundaries
Digitalization in healthcare rarely fails because of technology. The tools are available — electronic signatures, digital seals, validation services, eID solutions, AI-powered processing. The real obstacle lies in cross-organisational collaboration.
A hospital needs to exchange documents with authorities, staffing agencies, insurers and educational institutions. Each of these organisations has its own strategy, budget and priorities. Who takes the initiative? Who funds a digital solution that ultimately benefits everyone — including the other side?
With paper, this was seemingly simple: print, sign, put it in an envelope and post it. The other party did not need to do anything special. Digitally, this does not work — the other side has to participate. Both sides need to digitalize for an end-to-end process to emerge.
This is precisely where the lever lies: digital end-to-end processes can only materialise when the barrier for all parties involved is low enough. A signing solution that requires no installation and works on any device lowers that barrier considerably.
Where Electronic Signatures Make a Difference
Electronic signatures do not solve the staffing shortage. But they remove a concrete bottleneck in the process — and they do so immediately.
Faster Onboarding
Employment contracts, non-disclosure agreements, consent forms — all of these can be signed digitally. Instead of waiting days for postal delivery, a contract is signed within minutes. For both sides.
Legal Certainty Guaranteed
In Switzerland, employment contracts are generally not subject to formal requirements and can be concluded with a simple or advanced electronic signature. For agreements that require written form — such as non-compete clauses — a qualified electronic signature (QES) is necessary, which carries the same legal weight as a handwritten signature.
Under the EU's eIDAS regulation, the same three signature levels apply. A QES created by a recognised Trust Service Provider enjoys legal equivalence to a handwritten signature across all EU member states.
No System Change Required
A practical solution must also work for the other party. When a doctor can sign a contract via a link on their smartphone, they need neither software nor training. This makes collaboration across organisational boundaries possible — without every party having to launch its own digitalization project.
Especially Valuable for International Recruitment
When recruiting international professionals, electronic signatures save valuable time. Documents can be signed regardless of location — whether the candidate is in Zurich, Berlin or São Paulo.
The Bottleneck Is Often Not Where We Expect It
We invest in recruitment campaigns, improve working conditions and debate salaries. That is right and important. But sometimes the bottleneck is not in the market — it is in the process.
When qualified people are scarce, they should not have to commute for paper processes. And when organisations need to collaborate, they need tools that bridge boundaries — not create new ones.
The question is not whether healthcare will become more digital. The question is whether we do it first where it is most urgent: in the processes that keep professionals from doing their work.