The Win-Win Nobody in Healthcare Talks About

Elyssa (0:00)

If you work in Care at Home, you already know, this year has asked more of us than almost any before it. What you might not know is who is now sitting in the chair that decides where our movement goes next. She didn't just come up through boardrooms, she came up through the ICU and at the bedside on people's worst days. And a few months ago, she walked into one of the hardest jobs in American health care and said yes, with clear purpose, because frankly, here is the truth that cannot be overstated. If care at home doesn't get the next 18 months right, the system millions of aging Americans count on could buckle. But the good news is she already has a plan, and it's further along than you might think. Today, before I hand the mic over for good, you'll meet Alliance CEO Jennifer Sheets. We'll cover how she got here, what she tackled on day one, the new framework changing how the Alliance shows up for you, and exactly what she needs from you next.

Jennifer, I'm so excited for us to have this first episode of the Coming Home Podcast, and I want to dive right in with your story because I think it really helps us understand how you got to where you are now and what's driving you in this role. So can you share a little bit about your background in the ICU, your nursing background, and then I'd also like to hear about your personal story and what you're willing to share about that too.

Jennifer Sheets (1:22)

So I've had the experience of sitting in board rooms across the full continuum and being in meetings on Capitol Hill, but I always say I learned the most at the bedside. As an ICU nurse that began my career at the bedside, it became really evident from early on that healthcare is not theoretical and it's not some abstract policy issue. It's about impacting people's lives in the most vulnerable moments. It's about being present. It's about restoring dignity and trust and all those things that sometimes I get, I think get lost in what we do every day.

Elyssa (1:58)

What you say about care being personal and not just theoretical really resonates with me. And I know listeners of the podcast have heard me share my personal story with my father. And I know you have a personal story, caregiving for your mother. And I would love to hear more about that too, because I know it drives your work, like you mentioned.

Jennifer Sheets (2:15)

As you said, as a mother, as a nurse, and as a daughter, everything becomes really personal and really up close. And my mother's health took a toll, started to decline.

And I ended up spending about three years back at the bedside. So it was very interesting to go from bedside to boardroom and then back to bedside. I don't know that I expected to do that. But the interesting thing that I found is that I felt the same fear, the same frustration, to be very honest, the anger that a lot of caregivers feel. And I remember thinking, if someone with my background and all of my experience can't figure this out, how in the world is the everyday consumer supposed to navigate this?

Elyssa (3:06)

Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer Sheets (3:07)

And I actually carry all of these lessons into every role, certainly the role at the Alliance and how we advocate and how we make sure that every decision that we make and every action that we take is really grounded in that experience and access. How do we make sure that everyone that needs and deserves high quality care can get it?

Elyssa (3:26)

Yeah. And I know, I mean, thank you for sharing your story and I know caregiving for your mother wasn't really the first time you were exposed to that personally. Like you kind of grew up in that nursing world. Can you talk about your childhood and what led you into caring?

Jennifer Sheets (3:40)

Sure. So I was fortunate enough to have a lot of examples of servant leadership growing up and I feel very blessed for that. My grandmother in particular has a unique story. So she was forced to drop out of high school, which was common in the early 1900s to care for her mother when she got pneumonia. Pneumonia was a pretty serious diagnosis back then. It certainly can be now as well, but back then it was a big diagnosis. She spent a year and a half caring for her mother. When her mother recovered, she went back, she finished high school well after all of her peers and took everything that she had and bought a one-way ticket to John Hopkins University to become a nurse. And at the time, she felt called to be at the bedside of our soldiers. We felt like there was a better way to care for our men and women in uniform. And so that was her first journey. When she transitioned out of the military role, she started noticing when she was working in hospitals, that there was a population that was being forgotten. And she noticed that individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities were not best served in facility-based care.