Laurie Rittgers BSN,RN,CDP

I would say my greatest achievement is that I have remained grounded and continue to abide by the oath I took when I became a nurse. I use my business as a way to give back to the community that I live in. I've seen people who have opened businesses and they change - it becomes a numbers game - but I feel like if you do the right thing, the business just comes. It does, it just comes. Up until just a month ago, we've had no salespeople in the business, none. It's just been a huge word-of-mouth company. We get referrals from interesting places like geriatric care managers and elder attorneys, not just your typical assisted livings. It's really a beautiful thing when a family says, oh my gosh, I need to refer you to someone who took care of my mom. That's really the bulk of my business, and we are still a five-star agency on Google reviews. We've maintained that over the last few years, which I'm really proud of. That's not an easy thing - one bad review will knock your star down. I'm going to be 58 next month, and I feel like being a nurse for my whole life, this is just the absolute biggest delight to have. When you're a nurse, you can work in any field - I've done infusion oncology, cardiac stroke, assisted living, a million things - and this is just where I think I was meant to be at the later end of my career.

I would say that it has to be a calling, to be honest. It has to be a calling because owning a business and being a nurse, all those things, it's not a 9-to-5 job. It's literally 24-7. Yes, we do need rest and you have to take care of yourself, but when that phone rings at 2 AM, you have to be excited to answer the call. I can't express it any differently. If you're someone who loves people and is empathetic, caring, and really wants to just give of yourself, then this is the best field. It has to be a calling. I don't know how else to put it. It's hard, I mean, and I'm sure that's with any job, but I don't know anything else other than being a nurse and caring for others. I was the child who would see an injured bird in the yard and want to bring it inside and take care of it. My whole life I was that kid. My friends would fall and cut their leg playing hopscotch and I was running inside to get the band-aid. Still now, all my neighbors know what I do. If a kid falls in the street, they knock on my door. I've had a neighbor across the street in cardiac arrest whose spouse was knocking on my door. It's something that I love. Just make sure that it's a calling. Don't go into it if it's for a paycheck, because that's not really what it's about. And in regards to opening up a business, that is extremely frightening because the statistics show that most businesses fail within a year. My kids graduated college and I wanted to go for it, and I went all in. I said I'm just gonna give it everything I've got and let's see what happens, and it's a blessing. You put in the work and it just comes back. I would say to anybody considering opening up a business, take chances and go for your dreams. If you fail, well, you tried, but put into it what you want to put into it and you can definitely be successful.

One of the biggest challenges I've faced is that most home care companies are not owned by nurses or anyone in the healthcare world - they're owned by investors and corporations. When you hire a nurse to do home care, we take an oath to always advocate for our patients, clients, and families. But when I was working for these other companies, they really didn't understand and they tried to suck the life out of you with getting as much business as you can. For example, if someone needed 8 hours a day, I was struggling because my superiors were not happy with that - they wanted 12 hours and a live-in. When you have somebody who's paying out of pocket for home care services because in New Jersey it's all self-pay and Medicare does not cover home care, families can only afford so much. Being a nurse, we want to help everybody and they should have what they're looking for, not an oversell. I went from home care company to home care company trying to find a company that would advocate rather than trying to suck the life out of people. The challenge is navigating a system where home care is often treated as a business transaction rather than patient-centered service, and competing against investor-owned companies with larger resources while maintaining high standards of compassionate, personalized care and supporting families who cannot always afford the level of care their loved ones need.

I've always been very empathetic and I was always the child who would see an injured bird and would want to bring them inside and take care of them. If I was outside playing hopscotch and a friend was hurt, I would want to help them, and this level of empathy and compassion has stayed with me all throughout my life and my career. I have remained grounded and continue to abide by the oath I took when I became a nurse. I use my business as a way to give back to the community that I live in. I feel like if you do the right thing, the business just comes. All my neighbors know what I do. If a kid falls in the street, they knock on my door. I've had a neighbor across the street in cardiac arrest whose spouse was knocking on my door. If there are people in place that can help when someone's in need, then that would be my piece. As a nurse, we take an oath to always advocate for our patients, clients, and families, and I've stayed true to that throughout my career and in building my business.