What we are seeing
- - Many RN resumes include overlapping keywords across ICU, stepdown, and med-surg.
- - Keyword overlap alone can inflate fit for the wrong lane.
- - Hiring teams move faster when lane expectations are explicit before ranking.
Relay Health Systems
US RN Role-Fit Brief: ICU vs Stepdown vs Med-Surg
A practical brief for separating adjacent RN lanes so shortlist quality stays high and false positives drop.
Internally reviewedPublished Feb 14, 2026|7 min read
Reviewed internally by Relay internal editorial review on Feb 14, 2026
RNICUStepdownMed-Surg
How to reduce misclassification
- - Treat acuity signals as lane gates before broad similarity scoring.
- - Weight role-specific equipment and care context above generic nursing terms.
- - Surface open questions when evidence is mixed instead of silently boosting score.
Operational guidance for recruiter teams
- - Use lane-first ranking for initial shortlist generation.
- - Reserve cross-lane candidates for manual review buckets.
- - Track interview conversion by lane to tune thresholds each week.
Method and limits
This brief is based on publicly available role requirements, healthcare hiring signals, and Relay role-intel ingestion snapshots. It is intended for recruiting workflow guidance and should not replace licensure or credential verification.
Need this applied to your live workflow?
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