AMN 2017 Annual Report

Federal government projections call for healthcare to lead the U.S. economy in job growth for the foreseeable future. What is unclear is whether labor supply will be sufficient to meet that strong demand. Most healthcare jobs require years of education, highly specific qualifications, and on-the-job experience. Even amid strong demand, labor supply is inherently slow to respond. Over the past decade, AMN moved beyond our initial client engagement model, which focused on more immediate labor services. We sought to earn a more collaborative role in providers’ daily workforce management, the single largest slice of their operating expenses. AMN added tools and services to help employers optimize workforce management. Our solution set addresses recruiting process efficiency, labor demand forecasting, optimal mix of permanent, float and contingent labor, fill rate management, and more, with additional solutions in the pipeline. On the talent side, AMN is evolving with the healthcare workforce to engage clients and healthcare professionals in new and better ways. We place equal importance on the value we bring to healthcare professionals and clients. AMN has many strategic and operational efforts in progress, as we target ways to further improve our foundation for future growth: • We have heightened our focus on improving how we select top talent, build teams, and retain both recent hires and experienced team members. We are deploying new efforts aimed at ensuring that AMN is the most engaging workplace possible. Our team members are being given enhanced tools and support for goal-setting and career planning. And we recognize that a younger generation of team members may prefer a different work environment and incentives. • We are pushing needed technological change with the rollout of an integrated front- and back-office technology platform supporting all of our staffing business lines, which drives automation into our processes, not to replace people with machines, but to enable our team members to spend more time on providing a great experience for healthcare professionals and healthcare organization clients. Efficiencies gained from these upgrades also are essential to support our long-term financial targets. • Our product and service teams are developing tools that improve engagement and the overall experience for our healthcare professionals and clients. These tools are enabled for mobile devices and designed to engage the labor force and employers anytime and anywhere. • Consolidation is likely to continue having a dramatic impact on the universe of healthcare providers. Our strategy anticipates the needs of healthcare organizations with more complex, harder-to-serve challenges. We also are moving to ensure that AMN can serve the workforce needs in all care settings, as procedure volumes and patient visits move to new outpatient and ambulatory care channels. • In pursuit of additional acquisitions, we do not merely look for targets that meet certain revenue growth and profit margin hurdles. Our strategy is to add businesses that help AMN become more important to healthcare professionals and solve the problems that our clients are asking us to address. The way we do business is just as important as our financial and business goals. AMN has a true commitment to making a positive impact in our communities. Our leadership team sets high standards for corporate governance and accountability, measures results, and gauges when it makes sense to raise the bar higher still. We also gather views and guidance from our shareholders, many of whom have been instrumental in helping us set our governance direction. AMN is gaining recognition for our efforts. We were recently included in the first Sector-Neutral Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, comprised of 104 U.S.-listed companies that have demonstrated a strong commitment to gender equality, internally, in business relationships, and in their communities. AMN was named to the 2018 Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign, which benchmarks corporate policies and practices regarding LGBTQ employees. As we begin 2018 and look forward, recently enacted federal tax reform enhances our earnings and financial flexibility. A significantly lower tax rate will increase our annual free cash flow, strengthening the ability of AMN to invest back into the business while also putting capital to work in other ways that enhance shareholder value. Although a good portion of the tax benefit will immediately flow to shareholders through increased earnings, we intend to accelerate investments in key strategic areas, including our digital and mobile capabilities, employee productivity tools, and process improvements initiatives. We also will be increasing the value proposition to our team members through compensation, training and development, and other related engagement efforts. Charitable contributions and support of educational programs that are critical to ensuring we are preparing the healthcare workforce of the future are other important areas of additional spending. We believe these investments will differentiate our position in the market and improve productivity and employee retention; all of which will deliver an even greater return on investment for our shareholders. Our vision for 2018 and the long term has us excited about where AMN Healthcare stands today and what we can become. Setting and attaining standards for community engagement and corporate governance allows AMN to build and develop the talented, engaged team essential to the Company’s leadership position in healthcare workforce solutions. Engagement from our shareholders is essential in our successful pursuit of all dimensions of the AMN Healthcare mission, and we are very grateful for your support. Susan R. Salka President and Chief Executive Officer