Jacqueline Chen Valencia – Signature

A chair-bound man with a 200-pound tumor cannot convince the medical professionals in his area to perform a high-risk surgery. His home health care provider searches non-stop until she finds a qualified doctor who will, and the removal is a complete success, his life saved.

A woman is overcome with emotion as her husband regains the ability to speak.

He forms words for the first time in a year—“I love you,” he tells her.

The letters express gratitude. They express hope. Some are emails. Others arrive handwritten on yellow legal pads or in the expressive penmanship of elementary school students. They come from friends, from co-workers, from sons and daughters, from grandchildren.

The letters line the hallways of the Baton Rouge headquarters of Amedisys, the home health care company that provides daily medical assistance, hospice care, therapy, counseling and more for 30,000 patients nationwide.

“Any time I get busy or lose sight of why we do this, I read these letters, and I am reminded,” says Jacqueline Chen Valencia, a branding and public relations veteran of the financial, health care and staffing industries. “It’s about more than the patients, even. It’s about entire families.”

Valencia transitioned from New York City to Baton Rouge two years ago to take the lead marketing post at Amedisys. With Democrats and Republicans debating the implications and applications of “ObamaCare,” and 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 each day, it is her goal to make the Baton Rouge-based company led by founder William Borne a bold voice for consensus and change in Washington, D.C.

“My role has gone from building the national brand to working on ways to move the health care model forward,” says the NYU journalism grad, wife and mother. “Not just ways to save money, but how to improve care. Amedisys has a great opportunity to play a meaningful role in improving the entire system.”