When Ilene Warner-Maron, PhD, RN-BC, CWCN, NHA, FCPP, was a teenager, she got a job
as a nurse's aide in a nursing home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. “Working as an aide,
I felt like I was really doing something worthwhile.”
Dr. Warner-Maron has been an advocate for nursing home education long before she brought the nursing home administration program to PCOM in 2015. With over 35 years as a registered nurse and 24 years as a licensed nursing home administrator, she holds certifications in gerontological nursing, wound care, assisted living administration, frailty, and infection prevention in long-term care.
She has three graduate degrees in gerontology, health administration, and law and social policy, and in 2007, she earned a PhD in health policy from the University of the Sciences. Dr. Warner-Maron began teaching nursing home education in 1995, and today, she is director for the PCOM nursing home administration program and an assistant professor in the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.
“I take what I know from over here and bring it over here—but I’ve always worked in a nursing home,” she said.
Throughout her career, Dr. Warner-Maron has witnessed significant changes in the position of the nursing home within the larger public.
“It's not just a place for old people anymore!” she says.
Particularly since the pandemic, nursing homes have evolved into places that are “full of people who are both young and old, frail and not frail, cognitively impaired and cognitively intact, all living together,” says Dr. Warner-Maron. “We have a whole population that's completely different than when I started working in nursing homes in the 1970s.”
In the last several decades, the physical and mental conditions of residents of nursing homes have changed and become more complex. As a result, there has been an increased need for the employment and services of specialized clinicians, nurses and therapists in nursing homes, too.
And for many who require long-term medical care, it's often less expensive to stay in a nursing home than in a hospital.
Dr. Warner-Maron has found that many people are unaware of the existence of nursing home administration as a rewarding and lucrative career path. Students who have enrolled in PCOM’s nursing home administration program are often “people who already work in nursing homes and think to themselves, ‘I could do that better myself.’”
The interdisciplinary nursing home administration program at PCOM is Pennsylvania’s only program where all members of the faculty are also leaders in long-term care, ready to share their lived experiences in the clinical and managerial aspects of skilled nursing care. The program features courses in the biological, environmental and psychosocial aspects of aging, and organizational development and leadership.
“You really need people with the experiential knowledge of working in the industry
to teach you about the real world of nursing home administration and about what the
regulations actually mean,” says Dr. Warner-Maron.
The Pennsylvania State Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators-approved program satisfies the 120-hour education component of the Nursing Home Administration (NHA) exam application, and past students have also included former physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech pathologists.
The nursing home administration program is offered completely online, allowing students to participate from anywhere. Dr. Warner-Maron says it is an ideal fit for “people who have an interest in the promotion of health care, who know how to communicate, and who see the importance of long-term care, skilled nursing facilities, in the continuum of care of people.”
For the past 125 years, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) has trained thousands of highly competent, caring physicians, health practitioners and behavioral scientists who practice a “whole person” approach to care—treating people, not just symptoms. PCOM, a private, not-for-profit accredited institution of higher education, operates three campuses (PCOM, PCOM Georgia and PCOM South Georgia) and offers doctoral degrees in clinical psychology, educational psychology, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, and school psychology. The college also offers graduate degrees in applied behavior analysis, applied positive psychology, biomedical sciences, forensic medicine, medical laboratory science, mental health counseling, physician assistant studies, and school psychology. PCOM students learn the importance of health promotion, research, education and service to the community. Through its community-based Healthcare Centers, PCOM provides care to medically underserved populations. For more information, visit pcom.edu or call 215-871-6100.
Kristen Hopf
Communications Content Specialist
Email: kristenho1@pcom.edu
Office: 215-871-6303
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