Nurse

Healthcare is big business, and it’s only getting bigger. In
2021, healthcare expenditures topped $4B in the U.S. By 2028,
that figure is expected to reach $6.2B.


Within this growing and rapidly changing sector, nurses play an
outsized role. They comprise the largest component of the
healthcare workforce, they're the primary providers of hospital
patient care and they deliver most of the nation’s longterm care.
They’re also helping to lead the charge in new ways of delivering
care, creating companies right here in Baton Rouge that are
reinventing the way nursing is done.


Renita Williams Thomas is a pediatric nurse specialist and the
owner and CEO of In Loving Arms Pediatric Day Health Center, an
outpatient center for children with medically complex needs such
as congenital heart disease, traecheotomy, seizure, and genetic
and neurological disorders, among others.


The center combines skilled nursing, education and therapy and
enables children with chronic conditions to interact with other
kids their age who may also be going through similar health
challenges. Renita founded the center in 2012 after spending more
than two decades in the field with the Southern University School
of Nursing - where she earned her bachelors and master’s degrees
in nursing - Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, the Louisiana State
Department of Health and the Lousiaina School for the Visually
Impaired. 


Blasia Rivet is a Registered nurse and the founder and owner of
Decision Critical, a concierge nursing agency that offers in home
and mobile private duty nursing services in the Baton Rouge
region. Services are tailored to fit patient and caretaker needs
and include acute and chronic conditions, elderly care support,
post op recovery, and more.


Blasia founded Decision Critical in 2014 to fill the need she saw
in the community for a higher level of personalized care than one
can get beyond the doctor’s office. Blasia is a native of Baton
Rouge and a graduate of southeastern Louisiana university school
of nursing. 


Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs On the
Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Brian Newton at
itsbatonrouge.la.


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