Barbara Frank, M.P.A., is co-owner of B&F Consulting, Inc., a business that facilitates nursing home improvements by developing leaders' abilities to nurture their staff and help people work better together. She worked for 16 years at the National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform in Washington, D.C., where she directed the landmark 1985 study "A Consumer Perspective on Quality Care: The Residents' Point of View" and helped establish the national network of state and local ombudsman programs.
She facilitated the Campaign for Quality, through which providers, consumers, practitioners, and regulators developed consensus on what became the OBRA 1987 legislation that refocused nursing home regulations on individualized care. Frank facilitated the first Pioneer Network gathering in 1997, and in 2005 she facilitated the St. Louis Accord, a national gathering of providers, consumers, regulators, and quality improvement organizations that came together to improve clinical outcomes through staff stability and culture change. Co-founder (with her colleague and co-author, Cathie Brady) of B&F Consulting, she works directly with individual nursing homes to improve their stability, care outcomes, and quality of life. As faculty to the Quality Partners ofRhode Island Improving the Nursing Home Culture pilot, she helped 254 nursing homes improve staff, resident, and organizational outcomes, and co-produced Quality Partners' Staff Stability Toolkit and the four-part CMS Web series "From Institutional to Individualized Care." Frank also led a team in the New Orleans Nursing Home Staffing Project, which helped nursing homes recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Frank co-produced a film with Louisiana Public Broadcasting called The Big Uneasy: Katrina's Unsung Heroes. She coauthored Nursing Homes: Getting Good Care There (1996).
Frank serves on the board of the Pioneer Network and has a master's degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government.