About Mary

Mary began her career more than 40 years ago as a home health aide and went on to hold clinical, management, and executive roles in home care, including national director of clinical services for a multistate home health and private duty company. For 12 years, she served as a home care and hospice surveyor for The Joint Commission, where, in 1994, she was one of three surveyors selected to audit the organization against its own standards. For five years, she was an adjunct professor in the Master of Science in Healthcare and Administration program at Mercer University’s Stetson School of Business and Economics.

With Emily Rhinehart, Mary authored the first published infection prevention and control guidelines for home care and hospice: Infection Control in Home Care (1999) and Infection Control in Home Care and Hospice(2006), both endorsed by APIC. Since 2006, she has authored the CHAP Verified® and ACHC Certified Home Care Infection Prevention and Control Program®, now in its 20^th edition. Her work is used by providers, regulators, accrediting bodies, professional associations, and researchers worldwide. In 2021, the American Academy of Nursing inducted Mary as a fellow, recognizing her as a pioneer, leader, and entrepreneurial nurse in the field.

Mary has helped shape national standards throughout her career. She served on the joint CDC HICPAC and APIC committee that developed the first infection surveillance definitions for home health and home hospice, and on committees for The Joint Commission and CHAP that updated infection prevention and control accreditation standards used by home care providers nationwide. She co-authored the 2016 Infusion Therapy Standards of Practice, chaired the Infusion Nurses Certification Corporation, and wrote the home care chapter of the APIC Text of Infection Control and Epidemiology. She advises NIH-funded research on infection prevention in home health care at Columbia University and has advised AHRQ-funded research at Columbia and Johns Hopkins University.

A frequently invited speaker, Mary has educated tens of thousands of home health and hospice providers nationally and internationally, including at the CDC’s Fifth Decennial International Conference on Healthcare-Associated Infections. She has also presented national education videos for CMS and The Joint Commission and is widely considered a go-to expert on in-home infection prevention and control.