One Specialty at a Time

Some HMEs may see the current regulatory climate as an opportune time to cash in and get out, but NBN Group is looking at the situation with a different view — toward expansion. The Philadelphia-area company is opening its sixth branch this year. And what's driving the company's growth, its managers say, is meeting local patient needs.

“I think, historically, most companies have expanded geographically,” says CEO Linda Begley, “but, for the most part, they provide the same services or products. We've chosen to become a regional company only providing services in [portions of] New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania” that make up the Philadelphia metro area.

The business strategy has allowed NBN to expand horizontally and take advantage of synergies in offering specialized services across the home care sector for both children and adults. “It's one phone call,” Begley adds. “It should be easier for [patients] to deal with us than another company that doesn't provide all the services [we do].”

The business has come a long way since Begley founded a private-duty nursing company called Newborn Nurses in 1986. Today, her firm employs more than 200, generates $10 million in annual revenue and has offerings in several highly specialized sectors of home care.

NBN Group serves as an umbrella corporation for divisions that each focus on a separate home care niche: NBN Infusions serves home infusion patients; NBN Respiratory & DME handles everything from pediatric home ventilation to home oxygen clients; New Behavioral Health offers counseling services for children, many of whom are chronically ill; and Newborn Nurses, the division that started it all, still serves the area with private-duty nursing.

Business Opportunity

In the mid-1980s, Begley participated in a historic event at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: She helped discharge the very first ventilator-dependant child home from the hospital. The hospital's medical director was a visionary, she says, and a few years later became somewhat of a celebrity. Dr. C. Everett Koop, who saw one of the first children go home on breathing support, went on to become U.S. Surgeon General.

With the possibilities of pediatric home ventilation, Begley says she recognized an entirely new health care niche that needed a company to support it, one very specialized that required a work force with an understanding of both the patient and the high-tech equipment involved. So she went out on her own, launching Newborn Nurses in Cherry Hill, N.J.