Meet Brenda Riordan, Our New SVP, Home Care and Care Management Solutions!

Brenda Riordan joined VNS Health in July as Senior Vice President, Home Care and Care Management Solutions. Frontline recently met with Brenda, who oversees our Home Care (our CHHA) team and will transition to also oversee our CMO and Clinical Education teams in January 2025. Here’s our interview.

Welcome, Brenda, to VNS Health! What would you like VNS Health team members to know about you?

One of the most important things to know about me is that I’m an engaged leader. Some of the first things I’ve done at VNS Health is go out into the field with our home care clinicians. I think doing field visits and understanding operations from the perspective of clinicians and their patients is really important, which is why I plan to do a lot more of them. I also tend to be a strength-based leader—I like finding a team’s strengths and then capitalizing on those. Another area I have a real passion for is leadership development. I’ve had some amazing coaches and mentors and I’ve done a lot of coaching and mentoring myself.

What’s struck you so far about VNS Health as an organization?

One thing that comes through clearly is the longevity and dedication of the team members who work here. That speaks volumes for the organization. I think the history of VNS Health and the commitment of our people is second to none.

Is that what led you to join VNS Health?

That, and VNS Health’s mission. I started my career in home care as an occupational therapist. In the early 1990s, I worked for a health care company that was operating under a Medicare waiver program that allowed them to do acute rehabilitation in a home setting, which was very unique back then. We were dealing with very complex patients and a lot of them lived in underserved communities. I still remember many of those patients to this day. I wanted to get back to that mission-driven work of developing an integrated care model in underserved communities.

What kind of care model do you see for VNS Health, moving forward?

What’s exciting to me is that at VNS Health, we have all the components to deliver truly integrated care—home care, personal care, hospice, behavioral health, our Care Management Organization, and in-home medical care. There are very few organizations that bring together all those different services. When it comes to delivering care and managing chronic conditions for dual-eligible individuals and other vulnerable groups, VNS Health is very well situated.

In your view, what will it take for VNS Health to fully integrate our services?

To be the best provider of complex care, we have to continually think not just about the services we’re each involved with, but other parts of VNS Health as well. Someone may be discharged to Home Care, for example, but what does that patient need globally? What are they struggling with, and what’s going to prevent them from being back in the hospital? It’s a mindset shift. I think VNS Health has a unique opportunity to really change the patient journey. The question we always need to be asking is, how do we link all of our services together to facilitate that journey, and do it in a cost-effective way?

How else has your OT experience impacted you?

I think one of the superpowers of occupational therapists is their ability to find creative solutions to problems. Foundationally, OTs are problem solvers. In school, we learn adaptive analysis—breaking things down to figure out how you can do that same function with adaptive equipment. From a leadership perspective, that mindset and skill set is very useful for bringing people together and solving barriers or challenges as a team.

On a personal note, we understand you’re a hockey player.

Yes, I play on both co-ed teams and women’s teams, including a bunch of tournament teams.

Back in college, I played hockey at Boston University. My claim to fame is that I played in the Bean Pot tournament there, which is a huge tournament in Boston. I also played post-college for a while, then I had kids and took some time off. I just recently started playing again. It was my release during COVID.

And you have an English bulldog?

That’s right. Puck was a COVID puppy and he’s adorable, a beefy, 70-pound English bulldog. I call him Puck because he has a black round circle on the top of his head, just like a hockey puck! He’s as funny as can be—a real ham.