Highlights in the history of Guardian Nurses

2023

American Academy of Nursing selects Guardian Nurses MCC Program as Edge Runner

The American Academy of Nursing has selected the Guardian Nurses Mobile Care Coordinator® program as one of four innovative models of care to be named Academy Edge Runners. Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates will be recognized for this achievement at the academy’s 2023 Health Policy Conference.

Edge Runners are evidence-based, nurse-designed models that demonstrate significant clinical, financial, community, and policy outcomes with proven sustainability and replicability. The selected programs also highlight nurses’ ingenuity and collaboration in developing new methods to provide care and promote health equity.

Guardian Nurses’ MCC program improves both clinical outcomes and health equity by providing high-touch, personal care coordination and patient advocacy to union members and their families. When experienced registered nurses build trusting relationships with patients as they help them navigate the complex healthcare system, they also lower hospital admission and readmission rates through education and early intervention.

2021

Despite COVID-19 the company kept growing and serving patients

President/CEO and Founder Betty Long tells how her team of nurses pivoted to help patients get what they needed from the healthcare system during a global pandemic.

2020

Guardian Nurses becomes bicoastal

After 16 years serving the East Coast in Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York, we acquired our first West Coast client and launched a Mobile Care Coordinator (MCC) Program in the Emerald City: Seattle, Washington.

COVID-19 presents new challenges

Our nurses were relentlessly creative in finding ways to help patients despite the enormous obstacles presented by the first pandemic in more than a century. Amid the swirl of rapidly changing information, we stepped up to provide guidance for patients, clients and the public through our newsletter, social media, and live online town halls.

2019

Continuing to drive down healthcare costs

In its five years of operation, the Mobile Care Coordinator™ program has demonstrated an unparalleled ability to engage patients in improving their health and in making informed healthcare decisions. Our most mature program reports that more than 56% of its population has been supported by the MCC RNs and that the Fund’s insurance renewal rates—over five years—has been 7.42%. Over that same period, other funds have had annual increases of 8.5%.

Move into new building gives our team a home

Following the purchase, extensive renovation, furnishing and decorating of a handsome building in Flourtown, the Guardian Nurses team now has a comfortable, home-like environment in which to work and have fun together. The building we affectionately call “HQ” enables our team members grow to closer as coworkers and friends. 

Honored to be among Philly’s fastest growing companies

2019 marked our first year as a winner of the Philadelphia100® award, given annually by the Entrepreneurs’ Forum of Greater Philadelphia and The Philadelphia Inquirer to honor the 100 fastest-growing, privately-held companies in the region.

2018

A year of unprecedented growth as we celebrate our 15th year!

Thanks in large part to the overwhelming success of our unique Mobile Care Coordinator Program, Guardian Nurses’ has experienced exciting growth throughout 2018—our 15th Anniversary.  The growth has been spread across the board as we are bringing on new employer and broker clients as well as labor health and welfare funds who see value in having Guardian Nurses support their employees and members.

2017

Two pioneering programs earn Guardian Nurses a 2017 Health Care Innovator Award

Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates has been honored with a 2017 Health Care Innovator Award for finding innovative solutions to the challenges of quality, cost, and access to health care. The awards, given by the Philadelphia Business Journal, will be presented Sept. 14 at Ballroom at the Ben and winners will be profiled in the PBJ on Sept. 15.

Guardian Nurses has been a pioneer in patient advocacy since 2003, when Founder and President Betty Long, RN, MHA, saw the fear and confusion her elderly aunt confronted as she tried to navigate a maze of tests, treatments, conflicting opinions, hard choices and huge bills.

Long put together a team of experienced RNs who know how the healthcare system works and turned them into Nurse Advocates who make the system work for patients. In certain situations, the RN will accompany the patient on doctor visits – a popular option not offered by phone-only patient advocacy services.

Pioneering again 10 years later, Guardian Nurses launched its unique Mobile Care Coordinator® Program in 2013. Long literally mobilized her RNs by putting them in branded SUVs so they can visit patients in crisis at home, in the hospital or wherever the patient needs immediate guidance and support. The RNs bond with patients in their time of need and the trusting relationship enables the RN to continue motivating patients to make better healthcare decisions and take better care of themselves.

“The heart of Guardian Nurses is caring and trust between the nurse and the patient,” Long said. “But the bottom line for our clients is cost savings. Both the Nurse Advocate and Mobile Care Coordinator programs improve clinical outcomes, and that results in cost efficiencies.”

Clients include unions with self-funded health plans, brokers who include Guardian Nurses in corporate healthcare benefits for employees, and individuals who hire a Nurse Advocate to get straight answers, better care, and peace of mind for themselves or a loved one.

2014

Year one closes on the Mobile Care Coordinator Program® with impressive results not only on level of patient engagement, but also in improving clinical outcomes!

2013

Guardian Nurses launches the unique Mobile Care Coordinator Program.

2012

Guardian Nurses continues its good work as healthcare advocates, expanding from Philadelphia with new broker clients in the New York and Los Angeles markets.

The Guardian Nurses’ team is interviewed and filmed for “Nurses: If Florence Could See Us Now,” a full-length documentary film being produced by Kathy Douglas, RN, a California-based filmmaker.

2011

Betty Long, RN, MHA is named by the Philadelphia Business Journal as one of their 2011 Women of Distinction Award Winners.  She was honored at a dinner on November 29th at the Philadelphia Downtown Sheraton.

Nurse Advocate Joanne Simone, RN, MBA, is named 2011 Patient Advocate of the Year Award at Dorland Health’s People Awards at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Guardian Nurses president Betty Long began blogging on consumer healthcare topics. Her blog, Guarding Your Health, addresses advocacy, caregiving, elder care, hospitalizations and insurance.

Guardian Nurses Founder Betty Long was invited by Dr. Mehmet Oz to participate as an expert on the Sharecare website. Sharecare is an interactive social Q&A website created by Dr. Oz and Jeff Arnold. Leading physicians, nurses, hospitals, clinics, authors, healthcare companies and non-profits connect, interact and share their collective expertise encouraging consumers to ask, learn and act upon questions of health.

Guardian Nurses’ founder and president, Betty Long, RN, appears on the nationally syndicated Dr. Oz show to share “The Three Questions You Must Ask Your Doctor.”

2010

Guardian Nurses Celebrates Its Seventh Year!

Signed first contract with long-established Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to extend advocacy services to clients.

2009

Guardian Nurses is certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Women’s Business Enterprise Council of PA-DE-sNJ (WBENC).

2008

Guardian Nurses Founder and President Betty Long, RN, MHA, receives national award sponsored by Glamour Magazine and TAG Heuer North America for her work helping patients in the community.

Guardian Nurses is certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Pennsylvania Department of General Services.

Betty Long, RN, MHA, Founder and President of Guardian Nurses, is nominated by Wharton SBDC for the annual Small Business Association Entrepreneur of the Year award.

2007

Guardian Nurses celebrates its fourth year anniversary by premiering new promotional video “Lighting Patients’ Way Through the Healthcare Maze.”

2006

Based on $1.6 million claims’ savings in its one year pilot program, Law Enforcement Health Benefits (LEHB) extends partnership with Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates for another year.

Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates is recognized as one of Pennsylvania’s most outstanding small businesses during Pennsylvania Small Business Centers (SBDC) 12th annual Client Exposition, “We Mean Business.”

2005

Law Enforcement Health Benefits (LEHB) representing 7,500 police offers and their families award Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates a pilot project to test the impact of clinical intervention on healthcare costs.

2004

Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates formally opens its doors with a team of three nurses and ten private clients.

2003

Betty Long RN, MHA, founds Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates.