Carnegie Healthcare Corporation provides private duty nursing in Somerset County NJ for medically fragile children and adults who need skilled 1:1 care — whether that's overnight and extended-hour shifts at home, a dedicated nurse during the school day, or both. We are a New Jersey-licensed home health agency (NJ DCA/HCSF) staffing RNs and LPNs, with care available across Bridgewater, Hillsborough, Franklin Township, Montgomery, Bernards, and the surrounding Somerset County communities.
For patients with complex medical needs, private duty nursing means a licensed nurse in the home for the shift — 4, 8, 12, sometimes 24 hours a day — rather than a brief visit. In Somerset County homes our RNs and LPNs manage ventilator and tracheostomy care, G-tube and J-tube feeding, seizure protocols, medication administration, IV therapy, and ongoing assessment for patients whose condition can change quickly.
We serve both children and adults. For a child, that often means a parent can sleep through the night or keep their job instead of providing 24-hour nursing themselves. For an adult — after a hospital stay, with a progressive condition, or on long-term vent support — it means staying safely at home instead of a facility.
If your child has been discharged from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset or from Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital in New Brunswick, we can coordinate directly with the discharging team so the nursing plan going into school matches the plan that came out of the hospital. Many of the families we work with come home from a hospital stay on new equipment, and we coordinate the transition so nursing is in place the day the patient comes home.
For students whose medical needs can't be met by a building's shared nurse, we place a dedicated RN or LPN with one child throughout the school day. In Somerset County schools our nurses routinely manage tracheostomy suctioning and vent settings, G-tube and J-tube feeds and medications, insulin pumps and CGM monitoring, seizure rescue medications (including Valtoco and Nayzilam), oxygen therapy, cardiac monitoring, and complex behavioral or safety protocols for children with genetic and neurological diagnoses.
Nurses assigned to Somerset County school cases complete NJDOE Office of Student Protection (OSP) fingerprinting and criminal history review before their first day in a building. They carry current BLS (PALS where required) and are trained on the specific equipment your child uses — not a generic checklist.
Nursing services usually flow from the Individualized Healthcare Plan (IHP) written by the school nurse, referenced in the IEP or 504 Plan, and signed off by your child’s physician. We read those documents before day one. Our clinical manager will sit down with the district’s school nurse, the case manager from Child Study Team, and you as the parent to walk through orders, emergency protocols, transportation coverage, and communication expectations.
For school business administrators and special services directors: Carnegie contracts directly with Somerset County districts and can be brought on as a related-service vendor for a specific student or as a bench for substitute school nurse coverage. We handle credentialing packets, W-9, certificates of insurance, and NJDOE OSP documentation up front so onboarding does not stall a student’s return-to-school date.
Families in Somerset County reach us through several paths. Because Somerset has a strong commercial payer mix — AmeriHealth, Horizon BCBSNJ, Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare — we bill commercial insurance out-of-network with single-case agreements when in-network pediatric or adult PDN options are thin, which is common. We also accept NJ FamilyCare/Medicaid Private Duty Nursing, which covers medically necessary continuous nursing for patients who meet skilled-need criteria. For students, a third path is district-funded placement, where the IEP team has determined a 1:1 nurse is required for the child to access their education.
You do not need to have this figured out before you call. Our intake team will look at the physician's order, the plan of care or IHP, and your insurance and tell you honestly what path makes sense.
Home cases can often be staffed within 1–2 weeks of receiving orders and insurance authorization; school placements within 2–3 weeks once the district contract and IHP are in hand — sometimes faster when a patient is being discharged from the hospital. We recommend starting the conversation as soon as you know nursing will be needed.
Call Carnegie Healthcare at (609) 530-1800 to speak directly with a nurse manager, or email us at contact@carnegiehealthcare.com to send over the physician's order and plan of care. We'll tell you within one business day whether we can staff the case, what the insurance picture looks like, and the next step.