Why Nurse Next Door Is Focused On Developing The Leaders Of Tomorrow

Whether it’s helping frontline workers become franchise owners, or launching a leadership development program — Nurse Next Door is investing in empowering future leaders that will strengthen the entire company.

Vancouver, Canada-based Nurse Next Door is a home care franchise system that operates in the U.S., Canada, Australia and England. As an organization, the company provides personal care, companionship care, homemaking services, dementia care and more.

Over the years, Nurse Next Door has operated a “front line to franchise” campaign which focused on making home care business ownership more accessible to front-line nurses and caregivers.

Plus, the company launched a leadership development program based on CEO Cathy Thorpe’s 2024 book Bold Kindness: A Caring, More Compassionate Way to Lead.

Home Health Care News recently caught up with Thorpe. Aside from its leadership focus, Nurse Next Door continues to work toward growing its international footprint.

HHCN: What were some of the biggest company highlights that Nurse Next Door achieved in 2024?

Thorpe: We signed 65 territories globally. We’ve had continued international growth. We are now fully operational in England. We have, now, over 400 territories signed globally, which is very exciting. We’ve been working on this over the last 18 months, and we have officially built and launched a leadership development program.

As a franchise company, is there any concern about continually finding new territories?

I would say, our goal is not about selling territories. It’s truly about building the brand and delivering care. On top of that is, how do we continue to work with our franchise partners and make sure that they have those healthy businesses? That really continues to be the focus.

When you look at the opportunities, they will continue in the U.S. to sell franchises, but it really is making sure the overall health of the brand is there.

Nurse Next Door is one of the home care franchise companies that has an international footprint. Any plans to grow this?

We’re in Australia, and it continues to do exceptionally well. We moved into England just over a year ago, and we are looking at having our first franchise partners out of England over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for that. We are also looking at other countries. We’re looking at parts of Europe and Japan. We will continue to look at global opportunities, and bring Nurse Next Door where we know it makes a difference for allowing people to stay at home.

Nurse Next Door has been at the forefront of making home care business ownership more accessible to front-line nurses and caregivers. Your company had the “front line to franchise” campaign. Can you tell us how this has materialized over the years?

Our focus on this campaign continues. We’ve seen some really great success with it. I would say that we have also made sure that we have relationships and can support these partners. As an example, we have relationships with lenders that can provide financial support where they need it. We have developed our systems and tools to make sure that we are able to really operationally support these franchisees.

At the top of this conversation, you also mentioned that Nurse Next Door established a leadership program.

It started with a book. I wrote a book called Bold Kindness, and it came out just over a year ago. It’s very much focused on building that culture of bold conversations with people and doing it in a kind way. We took it from that book, and we said, ‘Okay let’s develop an online leadership development program.’ We spent all of 2024 really working through that and developing something that we’re very excited to be rolling out to the system over the next month.

Is there a program, pilot, or type of partnership that you’re hoping to implement, or go after, that hasn’t been done at Nurse Next Door yet?

I’ll go back to leadership development, because when you look at our most successful franchisees, they are all strong leaders. If we continue to develop leadership within this culture and just make sure that franchise partners have access to that leadership development, they are going to see their businesses grow and develop, because they’re going to be working with strong teams around them.

What partnerships does Nurse Next Door have that’s, currently, driving the company forward?

We do a lot with VA. We have a national IV infusion program going. We work with specialty pharmacies. We have hospital relationships. In Canada, we work with the health authorities, and we also work with peritoneal dialysis, and see continued opportunity for those partnerships. As we’re figuring out aging, and just how the hospital systems can continue to leverage home care, those opportunities will just continue to come up.

What does Nurse Next Door’s payer mix currently look like across the company’s entire franchise network? Will that payer mix be the priority moving forward or are there plans to diversify? Why or why not?

Right now, we are roughly 50/50. 50% private-pay and 50% VA and IV infusion, specialty pharmacy and third-party relationships. We had much more private-pay before COVID. Since coming out of COVID, we’ve really worked hard to create that third-party partnership across the system, so we will continue to work at those partnerships.

We like the balance of 50/50. I think it helps mitigate risk for the franchisee when they have different places that their business is coming from.

What are some of the toughest regulatory challenges home care providers are facing right now? How is your company tackling these issues, or preparing?

It’s actually the U.S. market that’s among the most regulated in the world. We’ve invested heavily in support for the franchise partners. We make sure that we have the expertise around licensing, so that we can help them get that license once they’ve signed and bought a franchise. 

We’re discussing with our franchise partners before they’re purchasing a territory. All of the regulatory things that they’re going to come up against — wait times, what are the requirements. They’re really going into it eyes wide open. We find when we do that, they’re able to meet the challenges that do come up with the regulatory environment.

Are there any new business opportunities the company is going after this year?

Obviously, international [growth] will continue to be a focus. We just launched an area trainer model out in California, so we’re pretty excited to see where that goes this year. Bold Kindness — the leadership development program is going to be a big piece of 2025 here at Nurse Next Door. I was with The Gap for many years, and the amount of time and effort that large organizations spend on developing leaders, I know that’s going to be something that is going to be huge across the system, and I’m very excited about it for 2025.