Louise Woerner

CIRCLE OF EXCELLENCE

CHAIR & CEO HCR HOME CARE

BY MIKE COSTANZA

As a young child living on Rochester’s Harvard Street, Louise Woerner experienced firsthand what it is to care for someone at home.

“My one grandmother died in our home of breast cancer, and I helped my mother take care of her,” says the Chair and CEO of HCR Home Care. “I like to say I was a ‘fiveyear-old hospice worker.’”

The experience left her with a positive view of homecare.

“The idea that you should be able to stay at home as long as possible became part of my DNA at that point,” she says.

That idea helped lead Woerner to create HCR. Founded in 1978, the firm now employs about 800, and provides home-based nursing, therapeutic and paraprofessional services to 25 New York State counties.

Under Woerner’s guidance, HCR has acquired a reputation for developing and providing innovative services. Years ago, the company began engaging in a practice that was then unheard of—the prescreening of patients.

“We went into somebody’s home before they went into the hospital to talk about what it was going to be like when they came out,” Woerner explains.

The practice, which is now commonplace, leaves patients better prepared to recover from their treatments or surgeries at home. HCR also adopted the transcultural strategies espoused by the late Dr. Madeline Leininger, PhD, RN.

“Dr. Leininger, who was an anthropologist as well as a nurse leader, came up with the idea of meeting people where they are,” Woerner says. “It’s patient-centric, rather than the hierarchical model where the practitioner has the answers and the patient has to do it the way they (practitioners) think it should be done.”

The approach has allowed HCR to devise home care programs that are more appropriate for diverse populations.

“We’re working very successfully in the refugee and the LGBTQ Community,” Woerner asserts.

In recognition of that work, the Transcultural Nursing Society presented HCR with the Leininger Breakthrough Honorable Mention Award in 2008.

Innovation need not take only therapeutic forms. HCR also struck off in a different organizational direction in 2004.

“We became…the first employee-owned homecare agency in the State of New York,” Woerner explains. “The employees own the stock in the company—it was given to them.”

While running HCR, Woerner has also focused on issues that transcend the business of home healthcare. She is the executive director—a voluntary position— of HCR Cares, a nonprofit research and educational organization that focuses upon the development of independent living strategies.

She also founded and became the first president of the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research, and is now the honorary co-chair of the nonprofit’s 25th anniversary celebration. Woerner has also held seats on

the boards of businesses, nonprofits and banks, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s now-defunct Buffalo branch, where she served for two terms.

Many organizations down through the years have praised Woerner for her professional accomplishments and dedication to her field. Though she has an MBA, and not a degree in nursing, she holds many nursing awards—she was the first non-nurse inducted into the American Academy of Nursing. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan presented Woerner with the Presidential Award for Entrepreneurship. She is also the first living woman to be inducted into the Rochester Business Hall of Fame.

When asked what personal qualities helped her reach the pinnacle of her field, Woerner lists one at the top.

“Hard work,” she says. “I may not be the smartest person, but very few people would out-work me.”

“Do your best, your very best, and do it every day.”

Mike Costanza is a Rochester-area freelancer writer.