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When a hospital closes its labor and delivery unit, the nearest place to give birth moves farther away. Reopening means rebuilding an entire obstetric team, which is often what the hospital struggled to sustain in the first place.
Those closures are coming faster than most people realize. March of Dimes counted at least 96 labor and delivery unit closures across 35 states between January 2024 and May 2026. In 58% of them, the unit that closed was the only place to give birth in the county. These closures increased travel times to maternity care by an average of 25 minutes in affected communities. Each closure moves another community toward joining the one in three U.S. counties that are already maternity care deserts, with no birthing facility and no obstetric clinician.
Workforce shortages were cited in about half of those closures, and rural hospitals cited them more often than urban ones. The pressure isn’t easing. The Health Resources and Services Administration projects a national shortage of 7,660 full-time-equivalent OB/GYNs by 2038, including a 46% shortfall in nonmetropolitan areas.
Hospitals need a long-term workforce plan. They also need a dependable way to maintain coverage while that plan takes shape. That is where locum tenens clinicians can play a significant role.
From stopgap to strategy
For too long, locum tenens has often been viewed primarily as a last-minute response to an open shift or unexpected departure. It can certainly serve that purpose, but the greater opportunity is to make locum tenens an intentional part of workforce planning. Depending on a hospital’s needs, locum tenens physicians may work a few shifts, provide coverage over an extended period, or regularly support an existing team. Those needs differ, but they share a common objective: helping facilities sustain care delivery. They can bridge transitions by easing scheduling pressures or helping a health system plan coverage more deliberately.
At OBstat, we’ve seen firsthand how these different needs play out across hospital settings. Since 2024, we’ve provided more than 250,000 hours of OB/GYN clinician coverage through our work with Ob Hospitalist Group’s hospital partners. That experience informed OBstat’s expansion nationwide in 2026, bringing specialized locum tenens services to hospitals, clinics, and health systems seeking transitional and ongoing clinician coverage.
These hours represent more than volume. They have given us practical insight into what it takes to coordinate clinician availability, match physicians to distinct requirements, and support reliable coverage across different care environments.
For hospitals in rural or underserved communities, that flexibility can create options where there might otherwise be few. Coverage during a physician’s planned absence, support during a lengthy recruitment process or additional staffing during a program transition can each serve a different operational need. This can help maintain access to essential services while leadership works to build or retain a permanent team.
For clinicians already on staff, additional support can help make schedules more sustainable. And for patients, staffing flexibility offers the opportunity to receive care in or closer to their own community.
Rather than viewing locum tenens solely as a temporary fix, healthcare leaders should consider how it can become a strategic part of their broader care delivery model.
Why obstetrics needs specialized coverage
Maternal healthcare comes with distinct clinical demands. A labor and delivery unit cannot simply postpone care when its schedule becomes difficult to fill.
Effective staffing requires more than identifying an available physician. It means understanding a facility’s unique needs, aligning clinicians’ qualifications with its capabilities, and ensuring they are prepared to work within established care teams and protocols.
This is why specialization matters. OBstat was built exclusively around obstetrics and gynecology, with dedicated processes for recruiting, vetting, credentialing, scheduling and supporting clinicians. That focus allows us to approach locum tenens staffing through the lens of maternal healthcare rather than treating OB/GYN as one specialty among many. Our goal is not simply to send a clinician; it is to be a dependable partner in a hospital’s broader coverage strategy.
Flexible staffing plays an important role alongside longer-term efforts to solve maternal health challenges by allowing hospitals to make better use of available clinical expertise, while also providing physicians with opportunities to practice in ways that align with their professional and personal goals.
This matters because clinicians are increasingly seeking flexibility, whether through local assignments, travel opportunities, or more control over when and where they practice. Connecting those preferences with hospitals’ staffing needs creates an opportunity to support both the workforce and the communities it serves.
Building a stronger maternal healthcare workforce
As we look ahead, stronger maternal healthcare delivery models will incorporate both permanent staffing and flexible support, recognizing that maintaining access requires stability as well as adaptability.
With workforce shortages projected to persist, hospitals must think about flexible staffing as part of their long-term strategy, with the ability to adjust coverage as their needs evolve.
Ultimately, staffing is about ensuring that patients can access the care they need, when they need it, regardless of where they live. By embracing flexible workforce models, we can help build a more responsive and sustainable future for maternal healthcare. For the families those hospitals serve, the goal is simple: keeping quality maternity care available as close to home as possible.
Greg Avery is president of OBstat, the locum tenens division of Ob Hospitalist Group. Learn more about OBstat’s staffing solutions for hospitals and opportunities for OB/GYN clinicians.
The post Locum Tenens: A More Flexible Future for Maternal Healthcare Delivery appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.
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