TOP 100 MAGAZINE

Leonard "Lenny" and Marianne "Mari" Jensen

​A Dynamic Duo at the Helm of Healthcare Innovation

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Meet Leonard “Lenny” Jensen and Marianne “Mari” Jensen, the powerhouse couple redefining senior healthcare and hospice care across the Northwest. With three thriving companies—FireNote, Keystone Health, and Keystone Hospice—the Jensen’s are transforming the industry with a unique blend of clinical expertise and human capital strategy.

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Lenny Jensen, MSN, FNP-C, brings over 20 years of experience in healthcare, combining his deep clinical knowledge with a visionary approach to product development and technology. A former officer in the Army Nurse Corps for 16 years, Lenny honed his skills and earning a reputation as a leader in patient care. Looking to spend more family time and beyond military service Mari and Lenny co-found Serenity Hospice in Portland, Oregon as their first venture into entrepreneurship. After acquisition and with a shared commitment to serving others, they moved to Boise, Idaho and started Keystone Health, Keystone hospice, Keystone Center for Geriatrics most recently, FireNote—a revolutionary electronic medical record (EMR) system.

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FireNote, their latest endeavor, is a game-changer for hospice and palliative care teams. This state-of-the-art, hospice-specific EMR system is designed to optimize care coordination, improve documentation efficiency, and streamline billing processes. Featuring advanced tools like prognostic alerts and integrated care plans, FireNote empowers healthcare providers to deliver personalized, timely care while enhancing operational outcomes.

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While Lenny leads on the clinical and technological front, Mari, COO of FireNote and a co-founder of Keystone Health and Keystone Hospice, is the strategic force behind their success. With a focus on human capital, Mari serves as the owner, vice president, and director of human resources for both Keystone entities, ensuring that each organization is fueled by a team as dedicated as they are talented. Her efforts in shaping a supportive and resilient workforce have been instrumental in building the high-quality care that their companies are known for. It’s no surprise that Keystone Hospice recently received the Veterans of Foreign Wars Veteran Employer Recognition Award—an accolade that underscores their dedication to both veteran patient and veteran employee well-being.

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Keystone Health stands as a comprehensive healthcare organization, delivering home-based primary care and palliative services, while Keystone Hospice focuses on compassionate, end-of-life care, prioritizing patient dignity and family support through an interdisciplinary team approach. Together, the Jensens are creating a future where advanced technology meets human compassion, making a profound difference in the lives of seniors and families navigating complex healthcare needs.

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Lenny and Mari’s journey is more than a story of entrepreneurial success; it’s a testament to their unwavering mission to revolutionize healthcare, one patient, one provider, and one breakthrough at a time. In this Q&A, they share the inspiration behind their ventures and how their groundbreaking hospice-specific EMR system, FireNote, is revolutionizing patient care across the country.

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What sparked your decision, as a couple, to launch not just one, but multiple innovative healthcare companies together?

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Mari: In our early years of marriage, Lenny was in his undergraduate program under the Army’s Green to Gold Scholarship and had the opportunity to work as a hospice nurse. Afterwards, he transitioned back to active duty, where he began running nursing teams in a Med-Surg unit. Meanwhile, I was working in insurance. We had a newborn, so after his long shifts, he’d take over caring for our daughter while I worked. One day, I noticed he seemed unfulfilled and asked, “When was the last time you felt truly happy?” He paused and said, “When I was a hospice nurse.” That conversation changed everything. That very night, we came up with the name for our company. We were just 28 years old, but we knew we had to pursue it.

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Keystone companies are transforming the way care is delivered to the Medicare population. Can you tell us more about your approach?

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Lenny: Our initial focus was on hospice care. While serving in the Army, I witnessed firsthand how ill-equipped civilian hospices were when it came to understanding the needs of veterans. That experience fueled my desire to create a hospice specifically tailored to veterans’ needs. Although our services have expanded significantly, veterans remain a core focus of what we do. We’ve built the most advanced veteran care program in the country.

 

From there, we expanded into home-based primary care because we noticed that not every patient needed hospice, but still required ongoing medical support. We started offering house calls, which evolved into our geriatric clinics, ensuring a seamless care continuum between home visits and clinic services.

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You took innovation a step further with your hospice-specific EMR system, FireNote, which is revolutionizing patient care and enhancing the workflow for nurses and clinicians. What makes it so unique?

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Lenny: The software we created connects seamlessly across various systems. Prior to Firenote, we operated on three different electronic health records that didn’t communicate well. We got frustrated with trying to piece together information for our patients, so we developed FireNote to bridge that gap and ensure smooth continuity of care. We launched it in February 2020, just before COVID hit. By the end of that year, we were the only hospice in our region able to handle COVID patients because FireNote enabled us to manage the increased volume effectively. Now, hospices across the country are using the software we built, and it’s truly transformed how nurses provide care—they’re spending more time with patients and less time staring at screens.

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Mari: Before FireNote, our nurses were spending up to four hours a day just documenting a single new patient. With FireNote, they can now document that same visit in 35 minutes. It’s given them back their time and improved their quality of life, allowing them to focus on what they’re trained to do—being clinical and critical thinkers instead of being bogged down by data entry.

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Website: https://firenote.health
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-jensen-msn-fnp-c-b3861821