Insights from the Kansas Hospital Association x Interstaff Webinar, August 4, 2026
For many hospital leaders, international nurse recruitment is equal parts promising and intimidating. The need for permanent staff is urgent. There are a lot of questions. And the stakes, both financial and human, are high.
On August 4, 2026, the Kansas Hospital Association hosted a live webinar titled Building Confidence in International Nurse Staffing: Asking the Right Questions for Success, featuring a panel of experts who have lived these decisions firsthand. The conversation brought together perspectives from KHA, leadership at Salina Regional Health Center, and some of our very own to help hospital leaders evaluate what a successful international recruitment program could look like for their organization.
Here are the key takeaways from that discussion. You can also watch the full recording on YouTube.
Financial and Regulatory Risk: Understanding the Landscape
Terry Siek, KHA’s Director of Clinical Services and a former hospital CNO, opened the conversation by addressing the primary hurdles hospitals face when considering international nurse recruitment.
Ethics come first. Before any financial analysis, hospitals must consider the ethics of international recruitment and find a partner who understands them deeply. This foundational step influences every decision that follows.
Think permanent, not temporary. When you consider the investment required to bring an international nurse to your facility, the strategic mindset must be long-term. This is not a travel nurse arrangement. The goal is adding a team member who plants roots, integrates into the community, and builds a career with your organization.
Know what you don’t know. Managing immigration in-house means navigating visa categories, processing timelines, and regulatory nuances that require specialized expertise. Each visa pathway varies when it comes to educational requirements and timeline expectations.
The credentialing puzzle is real. In Kansas, nurses cannot obtain licensure without a Social Security number. Depending on the visa pathway, this can create a gap between a nurse’s arrival in the United States and their ability to begin working. Understanding these interdependencies before you begin is critical to avoiding costly delays.
Terry’s advice was clear: you need experts in immigration. Attempting to manage these complexities without deep, specialized knowledge introduces risk that most hospitals are not equipped to absorb.
Clinical Readiness: Preparation Makes the Difference
Jonna Strubel, Director of Critical Care and Organizational Development at Salina Regional Health Center, shared candid operational lessons from onboarding international nurses across multiple agency partnerships.
Assess skills with specificity. Jonna shared the example of an international nurse with ICU experience on her resume who, in her home country, did not manage cardiac rhythm recognition because that responsibility belonged to providers. The takeaway: dig deeper during the interview process to understand what skills and knowledge a nurse is bringing, and where your team will need to bridge gaps.
Prepare your existing team, too. Jonna was refreshingly honest about a lesson she learned early: the first time she onboarded an international nurse, she did not think to prepare her current staff. Now she researches the incoming nurses’ cultural backgrounds and preferences, and helps manage the change on her team before they arrive. It builds connection from day one.
The Retention Differentiator: Managing the Whole Experience
Both Jonna and Stacy Maitha, Interstaff’s CNO, linked retention directly to how the full experience is managed.
Remove barriers so nurses can focus on learning. When housing is arranged, transportation is sorted, and basic needs are met before a nurse starts their first shift, that nurse can devote their full attention to their new role and their new team. When those things are left unresolved, the cognitive load competes with everything else.
Connection builds commitment. Jonna described how site visits, community barbecues, and peer connections between newer and more established international nurses created a genuine support network. Nurses who had been at Salina Regional for several years naturally became mentors and friends to newer arrivals. In Jonna’s own words, her organization’s experience with international nurses has been deeply rewarding.
Fragmentation makes it feel temporary. Stacy described a common scenario: an agency handles immigration, the hospital handles clinical onboarding, and the nurse gets siloed between the two. No one owns the complete experience, and that disconnect often makes the arrangement feel transactional for both the nurse and the hospital.
A unified voice changes the mindset. When one team supports a nurse from contract signing through assignment completion, covering clinical preparation, immigration, credentialing, relocation, and career coaching, the nurse’s mindset shifts from surviving a contract to building a career. As Stacy put it, when a nurse feels invested in, they invest back.
Professional development is a retention strategy. Stacy emphasized the importance of creating pathways that give nurses a reason to stay beyond their initial commitment. Whether that means specialty certifications, pathways to charge nurse roles, or leadership tracks, professional development signals to a nurse that they have a future at your organization, not just an assignment.
Community starts with cohort placement. Stacy noted that successful placements often begin with intentionality about community. Interstaff’s general practice is to place at least two nurses from the same region at a facility so that shared culture and peer support are built in from the start. When that is not possible, virtual mentorship and peer connections help bridge the gap until local community takes root.
Asking the Right Questions
Whether you are running an in-house program, or looking to an agency for guidance and support, you need to ask the right questions to best prepare yourself, your team, and the nurses you are bringing on.
- Do I have the immigration expertise to manage this process in-house, or do I need a partner?
- What is the true timeline from interview to first day on the unit, and can I plan around it?
- How will nurses be prepared before they arrive at my facility?
- What support systems are in place for housing, transportation, and community connection?
- Am I treating these nurses as permanent members of my team from the very beginning?
- Am I preparing my existing staff to welcome and support them?
- What mental and emotional wellness support is available for nurses and their families? Are those resources culturally appropriate?
- How will we navigate nuanced conversations with staff as integration exposes areas that require more attention or support?
These questions will help you audit your program and ensure any agency you are considering is set up to support retention vs. simply facilitate placement.
International nurse recruitment is not a quick fix. It is a strategic investment in workforce stability, and when done right, it transforms not just staffing levels but the culture of care within your organization.
At Interstaff, we have spent nearly three decades walking alongside hospitals and nurses through every stage of this journey. If you are beginning to explore international recruitment, or if you have questions about your current program, we can be a resource to you as you build out or refine your strategy.
To learn more about how Interstaff supports hospitals and nurses through international recruitment, visit interstaffinc.com or reach out to our team directly.