Visiting Nurse Association CEO looks back on not-for-profit's 50th anniversary

The Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Missouri will hit a milestone this month as the organization celebrates 50 years of service.

VNA leadership is planning several events to celebrate a half-century of service, including a drop-in reception from 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 23, at the group's Kennett, Missouri, headquarters.

It was Aug. 23, 1973, when the organization -- then called SEMO Regional Home Health Agency -- started serving the area around Southeast Missouri. It has both shrunk and expanded over the years, with a heyday of seven locations. It currently serves 1,900 patients across a dozen counties from four locations, including Cape Girardeau.

Shonda Young, a native of Caruthersville, Missouri, started working for the organization as its CFO in 2000. She now serves as its CEO.

"We have seen, as health care has evolved and changed and as the labor industry in health care has shrunk and changed, we serve a more critical role in the homes," she said. "People are coming out of hospitals needing a whole lot more care now than they once did."

Services VNA provides include wound care and rehabilitation. They also provide private-duty programs for children with disabilities as well as hospice care and a new palliative care program that just started in 2022.

Most of the work involves in-home care. Across all its services, the organization employs some 220 people.

"We have employees who have been here 30-plus years in all of our programs, which is incredible," Young said.

She said VNA has developed several loyalty programs to help employee retention, and regularly hosts appreciation events for them.

The industry suffered during the coronavirus pandemic, Young added, as the needs of patients and physicians alike have changed.

She said with a nursing shortage it's important for the company to show its workers they're appreciated. She said it's also important to support patients with a variety of skilled in-home care.

As the years have marched on, some patients' children have become patients themselves. Former VNA workers have also become patients.

"We truly want to give the best services to these community clients so they can either heal or have comfort at home," Young said. "It's hard, because we've taken care of some employees who worked for us through hospice, but we have seen a multigenerational spread."

Over the last half-century, VNA has implemented numerous new services to provide different aspects of care. It did not start out with hospice or senior companion programs, but over time, its leadership has identified and filled niches in the market to provide better services to patients.

"We hope we've got another 50 (years) in us," Young said. "There's not that many not-for-profit health care entities left anymore. There was a huge period of time several years ago where the not-for-profits just succumbed to the corporate world or dissolved ... (but) we're going strong. We still have a lot of services to offer and a lot to give."