I Am Unique:
A Worker-Owned Nursing Cooperative

Another model of Cooperative Health Care from Raleigh, North Carolina

I Am Unique Special Care and Case Management was established in 1993 as the first nursing agency cooperative in the U.S. and the first worker-owned home care cooperative in North Carolina. I Am Unique's emphasis is on being a nurse-driven and nurse-run organization. By setting up the company along different principles, I Am Unique will be able to attract the best nurses, retain them, and in doing so provide the highest level of care.

I Am Unique is dedicated to the provision of comprehensive, quality, client-centered and client family-centered care in the client's place of residence. We focus on the client's unique physiological, psychological, self-esteem, self-actualization needs, and safety, and are committed to the provision of home care services based on a team concept that will assist the client to search for meaning in their personal life experiences surrounding their illness or disability.We encourage our clients to make decisions about the provision of appropriate home care services based on their own defined unique needs, and to collaborate actively with I Am Unique's staff, as well as other health care providers.

I Am Unique Special Care and Case Management is based on a highly successful model of a home health agency cooperative started in 1985 called Cooperative Home Care Associates. This CHCA is a worker owned agency headquarted in the South Bronx, New York, and specialized in nursing assistants. Since it was established, there have been three other similar nurses aide cooperatives established in the northeast.

I Am Unique's business plan has been written by ICA, Inc. out of Boston, which, since 1978, has specialized in assisting companies to become employee owned and operated. ICA will continue to consult with I Am Unique until we are a well established cooperative. For more information, contact us at: (800) 566-8648, or email: atyson@iamunique.coop

- From www.iamunique.coop.