President and CEO of Nurses and More, Inc., Roger Brown, talks about his company’s success and focus over the last 30 years.  Nurses and More celebrated 30 years of “taking care of loved ones” just a few weeks ago on Memorial Day weekend 2018.  Nurses and More prides itself on being an established provider in the home healthcare and staffing industries since 1988.

1. This year you are celebrating Nurses and More’s 30th Anniversary (formerly Nursefinders).  What thoughts and emotions come to mind when you think about that?
Surprise, satisfaction, happiness, a sense of fulfillment. Surprised that it has been 30 years, time has flown by. Satisfaction from knowing that we have taken care of a lot of loved ones for 30 years. Young, old, disabled, etc. Happiness because of the relationships that I have established in the business. And a sense of fulfillment that we have created and founded the brand “Nurses and More, Inc.” and that it has picked up from where Nursefinders left off.

2. How did you get started in the medical staffing business?
I was the Director of Human Resources at Carolina’s Healthcare in Charlotte, NC in 1986. We were experiencing a severe Nurse Shortage with about 3 out of 10 Nursing positions vacant. The Director of Nursing came to me one day and said she could no longer ask the nurses to work overtime, holidays and extra shifts to help make up the shortage. She requested that I reach out to two local staffing agencies, one was Nursefinders. I became friends with the owner and quickly learned a lot about Temporary Healthcare staffing.  My wife, Sue, and I were from the Midwest and wanted to get back there. There was a Nursefinders franchise available for purchase in Indianapolis. I opened in May of 1988. The rest is history.

3. What was your vision for the company in 1988 and how have you realized that vision?
The vision was to start one office and make it successful at delivering the highest quality personnel to take great care of our clients’ needs.

4. In what ways have you grown Nurses and More over the past 30 years?
The first way is by opening additional offices. I eventually went back and purchased the Charlotte franchise location, then opened our Lafayette location, and our Orlando location.   In addition we have grown in the number of facilities we staff and the number of patients we take care of in the home in all of the locations.

5. What do you see as the biggest accomplishment since your start in 1988?
The opening of multiple locations.

6. What other CEO’s do you look up to and who has inspired you to have the work ethic that you do?  Who is your business role model?
Larry Carr founded Nursefinders and grew it into a very successful franchise business. We became great friends, and he always kept me grounded. We were very successful in the beginning and when I told him that we had a great week, he would congratulate me but remind “that was last week, what are you going to do this week?”

7. What is the best piece of leadership advice you have received?
“Focus on providing the best people to deliver the best care possible and the business will be successful.” NO SHORTCUTS.

8. Where do you expect to go in the next 10 years?  30 years?  In what ways do you expect to grow?
That is a great question. With automated intelligence, artificial intelligence, robots, the web, etc., this business is going to change dramatically over the next decade.  We will need to adjust our delivery of care in a world where telehealth and smart home features on the rise.  Devices like Amazon’s Alexa might one day be used by our Caregivers to verbally document a patient assessment while our Caregiver performs a dressing change.  In the next room a robotic device could be refilling medications according to doctor’s orders just received in real time.  Imagine that!  Our human Caregivers will have to adjust to these technologies and advancements in patient care.  We will also need to keep up with new methods of sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding Caregivers in this tech savvy and impatient world. The aging population is growing and will require a lot of caregivers. That is going to be the great challenge, finding the quantity of qualified Caregivers to meet the demand.

9. What is something about Nurses and More that people don’t often realize?
That we have multiple lines of business, home health, facility staffing, school staffing just to name a few.

10. How would you describe your business in one word?
Caring.

11. What has been your biggest challenge as a home health agency? What has been your biggest challenge as a staffing agency?
Home Health: Keeping up with increased regulations. State and Federal laws are changing dramatically in this business. Keeping up with them is the challenge. Staffing: finding the qualified caregivers that want to work.