Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Visiting Nurse Association of Northern Virginia records, Collection #C0054, Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University.

Acquisition Information

Collection donated by Emilie Deady in 1998.

Processing Information

Processed in 2011 by Leah Donnelly. EAD markup completed by Eron Ackerman and Jordan Patty in August 2009. Additional EAD markup completed by Leah Donnelly in March 2011

Historical Information

The Visiting Nurse Association of Northern Virginia was founded under the not-for-profit company Visiting Nurse Home Care, Inc. in 1937 to provide medical care across the Northern Virginia region. Under a team of physicians, registered nurses, home health aides, volunteers, and social workers, the services offered by the Association and the VNA Community Hospice include skilled nursing care, home health aide service, rehabilitation therapy, social work, and a volunteer program. Its area of expertise encompasses such diverse health-care provision as preventative care for diabetes and health education, mental health treatment, home infusion therapy, AIDS treatment, and assistance and counseling for the terminally ill and their families.

Scope and Content

This collection contains nearly sixty years of records of the Visiting Nurse Association of Northern Virginia. Materials include meeting minutes, financial statements, correspondence, reports, and memoranda.

The meeting minutes in Series 1 are sub-divided into two sub-series according to group: VNA Board of Directors (1.1) and Other Committees (1.2). The first sub-series covers the agendas, activities, and administrative decisions of the Board of Directors from meeting held between 1937 and 1997 as well as the minutes for the Executive Committee and joint committee meetings with the Board and Board Retreats. The second sub-series contains the meeting minutes from the numerous VNA committees including the VNA Community Hospice, Finance Committee, Mid-Management Committee, and the Professional Advisory Committee.

The correspondence in Series 2 covers the years 1937 to 1997 with the bulk of the materials falling in the 1970s-1980s. The correspondence documents communications between the VNA and the Board of Directors, outside hospitals, legal counsel, and citizens who used the VNA services.

Series 3 is arranged by subject and contains files that contain information related to events that were important in the administration of the VNA. Prominent subjects include by-laws, contracts, informational pamphlets, materials related to the VNA's National League of Nursing (NLN) accreditation, and the merger of the VNA with INOVA. The materials cover the date range of 1937 to 1997.

Series 4 contains photographs from the VNA. The images include nurses making house calls in a number of different settings, including rural homes and elder care centers. The photographs show nurses in their uniforms working with patients in a variety of tasks: conducting clinical tests, providing, physical therapy, and conducting speech and occupational therapy. Other images are from award ceremonies, banquets, and receptions. There are a number of undated images, but the bulk of photographs are from 1955 through the 1970s.

The oversize materials in Series 5 date from 1959 to 1997. Objects include award plaques, organizational membership certificates, and the pages of a large scrapbook, which covers the years 1959 through 1964 and contains a large amount of news clippings about the VNA.

Arrangement

This collection is organized into 5 series by document type and subject; the first series (meeting minutes) is divided into 2 sub-series by committee type. Series 3 is arranged alphabetically by subject.

Related Material

Special Collections and Archives also holds other collections that contain material on health care in Virginia.

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Visiting Nurse Association of Northern Virginia.

Subjects:

• Medical care--Virginia.
• Nursing services--Virginia.

Adjunct Descriptive Data