Community health is nursing's best-kept secret.

Long before this work had a name, the need for it showed up in small ways: a nurse buying a pill organizer for an elderly patient, a patient asking for “their nurse” instead of the doctor, a clinic running on quiet coordination that no one measured. In these settings, nurses are often the constant—the ones who know which patient lost housing, which one needs a call to come back, which family needs more than a prescription. They build trust over years, sometimes generations.

Two smiling nurses in green scrubs standing arms crossed in a hospital room

  • "Patients ask for the nurse by name."

  • "I've watched entire families grow up here."

  • "This is why I stay."

Nurses shouldn’t be invisible

Yet inside the system, that work is hard to see. Nursing sits on the expense line with no clear way to show what it returns. "We don't measure RNs, but we certainly could," one leader told us. Compounding this, nurses often aren't working at the top of their license because there's no shared understanding of what this is: RNs handle tasks medical assistants could do, while elsewhere physicians absorb work nurses could do more cheaply. This misalignment wastes resources and pulls nurses away from the most valuable longitudinal and population health work they are well suited to do.

Bubble chart showing tasks performed by MD, NP, RN, CHW/SW, and MA roles on care teams with a nurse, with RN-associated tasks like triage, patient coordination, and emergency kit management shown below a dashed line marking 'task oriented' work 
HOW IT STARTED
Elisabeth C. DeLuca Foundation Logo

As a foundation created by a nurse dedicated to strengthening the profession, The Elizabeth C. DeLuca Foundation saw the opportunity to address these gaps: naming, measuring, and supporting the work nurses already do—preventing escalation, coordinating care, driving reimbursable services.

The Foundation assembled a team to build it: Dr. Vian Nguyen, an experienced FQHC COO, alongside healthcare innovators from Future Medical Systems. Working with implementation partners LifeLong Medical Care and West County Health Centers, they developed the strategy, the process and the tools to drive operational change—and Nurse Roots came into being.

Our MISSION

Roots became the word that held it together: rooted in community, reaching the root of what patients need, growing care from the ground up, where it lasts.

Our goal is bigger than improving workflows. We're helping create a future where community nursing is recognized as one of the most meaningful careers in nursing, where clinics can fully realize the value of RN practice, and where every community benefits from stronger primary care.

Meet the Team

  • Vian Nguyen, MD

    Vian Nguyen, MD


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  • Rob Lister

    Rob Lister

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  • Kara Harrington

    Kara Harrington

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  • Lizzie Garrett

    Lizzie Garrett

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