Meet Our 2025 ESPRIT Award Winner: Rosa Marcus

When a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak hit Harlem over the summer, Rosa Marcus, Director of Support Services for VNS Health Personal Care, moved fast. She pulled together a list of Home Health Aide team members who were working in the affected community and coordinated with her team to quickly get critical safety information out to them.

This is the kind of rapid response that Rosa has become known for over her 45 years at VNS Health. Her skills were honed even more sharply during the pandemic: When our offices were closed due to COVID, she helped keep over 6,000 HHA team members regularly updated and feeling engaged, a task she describes as “gargantuan.”

What makes Rosa extraordinary isn’t just her longevity—it’s her ability to see both sides of the health care equation. “I deal a lot with patients’ complaints and concerns, and I also deal with the HHAs’ concerns,” she explains. “That combination is very rewarding.” Tom Cocozza, Vice President of Operations for VNS Health Personal Care, says she has an “easy ear”—callers may start out angry, but by conversation’s end, they’re saying “thank you” to her.

Rosa explains that she approaches every situation “like I am helping my family and friends.” That empathy comes from experience. Rosa cared for both of her parents in their final days, spending dedicated time at each of their bedsides. Watching HHAs provide care to her mother and father showed Rosa how vital—and challenging—their work truly is. “HHAs would help change them and do other things I couldn’t do,” she reflects. “And they did it with such ease and caring.”

Leading a 26-person team that manages referrals, compliance and quality, Rosa champions cultural competency. She maintains daily communication with HHA team members who collectively speak 33+ languages, has managed teams serving Chinese-language clients, and regularly serves as a liaison for Spanish-speaking HHAs.

Rosa has also implemented electronic clock-in systems and helped launch the VNS Health Rewards program, which has contributed in a big way to Personal Care’s 85% retention rate—20% above the national average. During the pandemic, she was a driving force behind VNS Health’s HHA Emotional Support Calls, which are still ongoing and recently completed their 350th weekly session.

“It’s especially rewarding that the organization is acknowledging my Empathy and Integrity, which I believe are my strongest values,” Rosa says of her ESPRIT Award. When she’s not working hard to help support our thousands of HHA team members, Rosa—known to family and friends as Shaggie, for a memorable haircut decades ago—watches Spanish soap operas, often taking in several a night. “I grew up watching them with my parents,” she says, “and I feel like I’m watching with them now.”