Mark Baiada Shares 3 of His Big Leadership Decisions

If you are a child, adult, or senior living with significant illness or disability, you usually receive the everyday care you need in one of three ways:

1. In a long-term care facility like a nursing home
2. Provided by family and friends to the best of their ability
3. From a professional home health care provider

More than 50 years ago, that third choice was barely an option.

Recently, I had the honor and pleasure of meeting with J. Mark Baiada, the Founder and Chairman of BAYADA Home Health Care at his office in Moorestown, NJ.

“Back then, there were hardly any home care providers,” Mark told me. “There wasn’t much of an industry out there.

“When I started, I think I was the fifth private provider in Philadelphia, and I was like, the market’s saturated.” We both chuckled. “Today, there are probably a hundred just in this area. They’re all over the place.”

Some are very good, and some are not. That’s because, unlike other kinds of businesses, there’s a low cost of entry into home health care. These days, all you need is a cell phone.

Then and Now

Now, 50 years later, BAYADA has become a trusted, global leader in the movement to help people have a safe home life with comfort, independence, and dignity. And that’s how Mark would like to be remembered: as someone who helped millions of families get the compassionate, excellent, and reliable care they need at home.

“In 1975, I was 27 years old. I had invested my life savings into this idea, and I’ll tell you the truth, it was scary,” Mark remembered. “I felt the weight of personal responsibility for every client and employee. Every decision felt critical, like it could make or break us.”

Mark had experience as a market researcher for Avon and American Thread Company, so he did what he knew best. He channeled that fear into meticulous, data-driven decision making.

“I remember I would test headlines in the newspaper. Which ads performed best according to their size, placement, or publication?” he said. “Every juncture became a continuous cycle to test, measure, adapt, and never stop learning.”

Decision #1: Find the Growth Opportunity

When choosing the business he wanted to be in, Mark sought these essentials:

1. It had to help people.
2. It had to make a difference in people’s lives.
3. It had to be in growing demand.

He did his market research and found some long-term drivers of growth for the home health care industry. Demographics were projecting an exploding number of seniors, but fewer traditional caregivers:

1. Our population was getting older.
2. People were having fewer kids.
3. More women were entering the workforce.
4. More adult children were moving away from their families.

Plus, two unforeseen drivers would help expand and diversify BAYADA services:

1. In the 1980s, government programs like a new hospice benefit started reimbursing home health care costs through Medicare and Medicaid. Before that, all clients paid out of pocket.
2. Medical advancements started helping more babies and adults survive serious illness and enabled high-acuity care (such as ventilators) at home. Demand for highly skilled home nursing continued to rise.

As medical science advances, so does the need for high-tech and high-quality home health care.

Decision #2: Scale with Values and Trust

Mark had found the right industry to fit his values, “Care about people, do great work, and show up.”

Of course, today BAYADA is known for one of the strongest values-based cultures in health care and beyond. I was curious if Mark had known back then that corporate culture could become his “secret sauce.”

“No, I wasn’t really thinking about it that way,” he answered. “I just figured that if I worked hard and did the right thing, and focused on taking care of people, that I could be successful.”

What became revolutionary, however, was the way BAYADA successfully scaled its culture as it got bigger.

Each time BAYADA opened a new location, Mark would empower an employee he trusted to uphold the same values as they built a team and figured out how to meet the unique needs of that community.    

In every region, in each new specialty practice, their team of social entrepreneurs continued to:

1. Build personal relationships.
2. Keep their promises.
3. Make excellence their hallmark.

And it worked!

In 1997, a book called Managing by Values by Blanchard and O’Connor popularized many of the same principles and helped Mark evolve how he communicates them. It wasn’t until 2002 that someone suggested codifying BAYADA’s beliefs into a statement of purpose.

“Our long collaboration with clients, employees, and stakeholders to define The BAYADA Way, and The BAYADA Way bus tour, is a story unto itself,” Mark said. “But what’s so remarkable to me is that I keep discovering more ways our organization has benefited from that decision.”

“The BAYADA Way gives us the words to get aligned,” he continued. “It promotes great talent and highly functional teams because caring people with the same work ethic self-select in, and when something isn’t working, a heart-to-heart on expectations tends to straighten it out.”

“It’s kind of like parking your car,” he reflected. “Everyone wants to do the right thing; we just need to know where the lines are. Your people really appreciate that clarity to know where they’re going and keep moving forward.”

Decision #3: Embrace Change Until Needs Are Met

Today, there is so much demand for home health care that supply has become a chronic constraint. So have those federal reimbursements.

“The need is there. People want to receive care at home,” Mark said. “The low reimbursements and workforce shortages are the problem now.

“There is not enough money for health care in general, and home care gets the least of all,” he explained. “Today, only a handful of payors control the market, and they’re not paying.

“With the advent of big insurers and private equity, they come and slash and burn and put a squeeze on providers. Some states are better than others, but it’s all over the lot, and it’s unpredictable.”

BAYADA and a separate advocacy organization, BAYADA Hearts for Home Care, have staff devoted to researching and developing innovative ways to address the reimbursement problem. BAYADA also does a great job with its in-house Nurse Residency Program and other professional training programs that invest in people and attract them into home care careers.

But something drastic and far-reaching needs to change to significantly grow the health care workforce not only in the US, but around the world. Otherwise, we face a future where many people in need either receive poor care or go without.      

Mark explained, “The problem is not a lack of interested workers, but a lack of slots in nursing schools. The schools are full. We need more of them and bigger enrollments, but nobody’s taking on the macro problem. So, we’re trying to do it.”

To address the nursing crisis, Mark teamed up with a teaching hospital and a college in his home state of New Jersey to create a new kind of accelerated, 15-month nursing program for college graduates called BAYADA Scholars:

1. Superior clinical training will be its hallmark.
2. A hybrid classroom / apprenticeship model will give students lots of experience providing direct patient care.
3. More new nurses will be confident and ready to provide great patient care as soon as they graduate.

His new organization is called BAYADA Education. Their simple mantra: “More great nurses.”

Mark told me, “My vision for BAYADA Education is to partner with 100 hospitals.” Unfazed, he added, “I’ll be dead by then.”

Beyond BAYADA Scholars, Mark is supporting other regional nursing schools, too. He is helping several colleges start similar nursing programs and is encouraging every nursing school he knows to increase enrollment and enhance their clinical training.

Mark’s Advice for Future Leaders

Asked if the lessons he has learned in his career were particular to home health care, Mark answered no.

“These are good values for any business,” he said,

1. “Care about your customer.
2. Do very good work for them, and
3. Do what you say you’re going to do.”

He added, smiling, “It’s not that fancy.”

Mark offered advice for the entrepreneurs of tomorrow who want to make a meaningful difference in this world.

“Never underestimate the power of human connection,” Mark said. “The world is changing faster than ever. Technology is transforming every aspect of our lives. But amidst all that change, personal relationships remain paramount.”

“As leaders in your chosen field, remember:

1. “Build trust,
2. Empower your team, and
3. Lead with both your head and your heart.”

“That’s how we create lasting impact. That’s how we build a legacy worth inheriting.”

Join us! Whether you are starting a career or looking for a leadership role, visit jobs.bayada.com for opportunities near you. To help defend access to home health care, visit heartsforhomecare.com/get-involved.