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.

Renita Williams Thomas, her In Loving Arms Pediatric Day Center provides care for children with short-term or long-term health needs in Baton Rouge

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 Rivet, her agency, Decision Critical, provides concierge nursing for patients who need healthcare help at home

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.

Renita Williams Thomas, Stephanie Riegel, Blasia Rivet, Out to Lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs On the Boulevard. Photos by Brian Newton.