A chief nursing officer email list cannot start from a registry, because no federal registry lists the title. The closest occupational count is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 597,080 wage and salary jobs in occupation 11-9111 (Medical and Health Services Managers), from its May 2025 estimates; self-employed and owners of unincorporated firms are not counted. The establishment side comes from the Census Bureau: 8,361,342 employer establishments in all industries in the United States in 2023, of which 200,344 have 100 employees or more.
How many chief nursing officers the US counts, and in what unit
| Count | What is counted | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 597,080 | wage and salary jobs in occupation 11-9111, Medical and Health Services Managers (self-employed and owners of unincorporated firms are not counted) | BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics | May 2025 estimates |
| 8,361,342 | employer establishments in all industries in the United States (an establishment is a location: a firm with 40 offices counts 40) | Census, County Business Patterns | 2023, released 29 May 2025 |
| 6,105,005 | of those establishments with fewer than 10 employees | Census, County Business Patterns | 2023, released 29 May 2025 |
| 200,344 | of those establishments with 100 employees or more | Census, County Business Patterns | 2023, released 29 May 2025 |
| 1,029,689 | employer establishments in California | Census, County Business Patterns | 2023, released 29 May 2025 |
| 670,878 | employer establishments in Texas | Census, County Business Patterns | 2023, released 29 May 2025 |
| 645,575 | employer establishments in Florida | Census, County Business Patterns | 2023, released 29 May 2025 |
County Business Patterns is read at the total of all industries; the healthcare slice of it is a separate extraction, counted by Premium Data, and lives in the count records.
Why the numbers do not match. They count different things, and neither is a count of chief nursing officers.
- The BLS counts jobs, not people and not titles. Its survey leaves out the self-employed and owners and partners in unincorporated firms, and one nurse executive holding two part-time roles counts as more than one job. The 597,080 is a count of wage and salary jobs in occupation 11-9111, not a headcount of any single title.
- The Census counts locations, not companies and not roles. A hospital network with 40 sites counts 40 establishments, because an establishment is a location: a firm with 40 offices counts 40. At the other end, 6,105,005 of the 8,361,342 establishments, about 73% (6,105,005 of 8,361,342), have fewer than 10 employees.
- No source counts the title itself. Anyone who publishes an exact number of chief nursing officers in the United States is publishing a number no federal registry supports.
Who is a chief nursing officer on this list, title by title
There is no NUCC code and no dedicated SOC code for the role. The occupation is 11-9111, Medical and Health Services Managers, under management occupations.
| Title | In the count |
|---|---|
| Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) | yes, the target |
| Chief Nurse Executive | yes, the same role under another name |
| Vice President of Nursing or VP of Patient Care Services | yes, when it is the top nursing executive of the organization |
| Director of Nursing | yes in hospitals and multi-site groups, no in a small practice where it means a working supervisor |
| Nursing manager, unit manager, charge nurse | no, these sit below the executive level |
| Staff nurse, nurse practitioner | no, clinical roles, not executive ones |
| Chief Medical Officer, practice administrator | no, a different executive seat |
The edge cases are organizations, not titles. In a hospital system, the chief nursing officer of the system and the nursing directors of each facility are different people; say which level you want before the count. In a nursing home or a home health agency, the top nurse may carry the title Director of Nursing and still be the executive you want. Other healthcare and executive roles have their own entry on the role index.
Where chief nursing officer contact data comes from
- The BLS profile gives the occupation count and its split by employer type and state, for medical and health services managers as a whole. It gives no names, no establishments, and no emails.
- County Business Patterns gives the establishments by size and state, including the 200,344 establishments of 100 employees or more. It gives no names and no titles.
- The organization's own website is usually the only public place the name appears, in a leadership page or a press release announcing an appointment. Many organizations publish no executive list at all, and the page often names the person without a direct email or a direct phone.
- State boards of nursing license registered nurses, not executives, and a license record confirms the person is a nurse, not that they hold the top nursing seat.
- Press and appointment announcements catch the moves: a new chief nursing officer named in a trade publication has often not yet been added to the organization's website. They confirm the person, rarely the contact details.
From occupation code to chief nursing officer, in five lines
- Write the target: which organizations, which states, system level or facility level.
- Keep the establishments big enough to carry the role, starting from the size and state you chose.
- Match each establishment to its top nursing executive by name and title.
- Find a phone that reaches them and a work email when one exists, then check they are still there.
- Remove your current clients before delivery.
Each step, and where it breaks, is on the page that explains the full method.
Building the chief nursing officer list yourself, counted in actions
No federal source names the title, so the build starts from establishments. Take the 200,344 establishments with 100 employees or more, which is 200,344 of the 8,361,342 counted in 2023, about 2.4% (200,344 of 8,361,342). Building that list yourself means:
- 200,344 establishment checks, one per establishment with 100 employees or more, to see whether it is a healthcare organization that carries a top nursing executive at all;
- one leadership-page search for each establishment kept, to find the name and the exact title of its chief nursing officer;
- one phone search for each named executive, with a call each time the only number found is a switchboard or a scheduling line;
- one check per named executive that the person has not left the organization, because appointment announcements age fast;
- one email search for every line kept, knowing that many healthcare executives publish no work address you can find.
A narrower target shrinks every line of that list: one state, or one type of facility, or system-level executives only.
What breaks on a chief nursing officer list
The occupation code answers for a hundred other titles
Occupation 11-9111 holds medical and health services managers as a whole: practice administrators, clinic directors, health information managers. A list built on the code pulls all of them in, and most of them are not chief nursing officers. The code narrows the field; only the organization's own leadership page confirms the title.
The title changes with the size of the organization
In a hospital system the top nurse is a Chief Nursing Officer or a VP of Nursing; in a nursing home the same seat is a Director of Nursing; in a mid-size group it can be Chief Nursing Executive or VP of Patient Care. A search on one exact title misses the others. Filter on the seat, not the string.
One executive, many establishments
A health system counts one establishment per site in County Business Patterns, and one chief nursing officer can sit above twenty of them. The same person can also appear on a system page and on a hospital page with different phones. Deduplicate on the person before you count, and decide whether you want the executive once or once per site.
The switchboard answers, and the appointment ages
Hospital and system phone trees route to paging or scheduling, and the number published for the executive's office often reaches an assistant, which is a company line, not a person line. And the role turns over: an executive named in a press release two years ago may have moved, while the old leadership page still carries the name. The check that the person is still there is not optional.
What Premium Data delivers for a chief nursing officer target
- A person line for each chief nursing officer (name, title, company, a phone that reaches them, work email when it exists), or a company line for each business (name, address, main phone, website).
- Built on the day you order, on the codes and states you chose.
- Three checks on every line: the company, the person, and whether the person is still there.
- Only lines delivered with a phone number are billed, never above the ceiling you set.
- A wrong line is refunded at its price on proof (a call recording, a hard bounce, a public profile) within thirty days of delivery.
- The count is free, in a 30 minute call, you call one chief nursing officer of the file with us before paying, and the first 100 contacts are on the house.
The federal rules for calling and emailing healthcare executives are summed up on our United States page.
In short: chief nursing officers in three dated facts
- In its May 2025 estimates, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 597,080 wage and salary jobs in medical and health services managers, the occupation that holds chief nursing officers along with other health executives (BLS OEWS, read on 14 October 2026).
- County Business Patterns counted 8,361,342 employer establishments in the United States in 2023, of which 200,344 had 100 employees or more, the size at which a top nursing executive is plausible (Census, released 29 May 2025, read on 6 October 2026).
- 6,105,005 of those 2023 establishments, about 73% (6,105,005 of 8,361,342), had fewer than 10 employees (Census, released 29 May 2025, read on 6 October 2026).