When Jarod Cannicott acquired two BrightStar Care territories in the Oklahoma City metro in 2021, his goal was simple: build a home-care organization that families can trust when they are in crisis.
By 2025, that same focus led him to expand across Oklahoma City and acquire the BrightStar Care location in Tulsa – a longtime office that had served the community for 17 years but was not consistently delivering care to the standard he expects.
“When we acquired the Tulsa location, the care experience wasn’t meeting our standard,” Cannicott said. “Fixing that required a full overhaul of staffing, training, and clinical oversight – and we’ve done that work.”
Today, Cannicott operates five BrightStar Care locations as one integrated agency, with the scale to serve clients across Oklahoma.
“We serve clients statewide,” he said. “We have clients as far west as Elk City, as far north as Ponca City, as far east as Grove, and then south down to Ardmore.”
That reach is backed by a statewide caregiver bench – about 250 caregivers across Oklahoma – and a model designed for speed and reliability when families need help fast.
“In many personal care situations, we can start the same day,” Cannicott said. “And families get a live answer 24/7 from our own staff – not a call center.”
A higher standard, with nurses built into the operation.
BrightStar Care is known nationally as an in-home care provider, and Cannicott believes the brand’s biggest differentiator is how strongly it leads with clinical oversight and skilled care.
“Nurses aren’t an afterthought here,” he said. “Our company is nurse-led. We have registered nurses deeply involved in how we deliver care – including roles that most people wouldn’t expect, like scheduling and community liaison work – so oversight is baked into the operation.”
Cannicott points to Joint Commission accreditation as one-way BrightStar holds itself accountable to that standard.
The Joint Commission is a nationally recognized organization that accredits health care providers based on quality and safety standards, including many leading hospitals and health systems.
“We use that framework to keep our practices tight,” Cannicott said. “It’s about consistency and safety for families.” That emphasis shows up in operational details as well. For example, Cannicott’s teams reassess clients every 90 days, more frequently than the industry norm, because care needs can change quickly.
“Families deserve a plan that stays current,” he said. “And reliability matters – the best care plan fails if shifts aren’t covered. Our systems are built for coverage.”
Like many home care agencies, BrightStar provides private-pay personal care with CNAs and caregivers.
Cannicott says the difference is the breadth of skilled and higher-acuity care his Oklahoma team delivers – services many agencies cannot safely provide.
“We do private pay personal care, but we also do higher-acuity work,” he said. “That includes private-pay skilled nursing, catastrophic workers’ compensation cases, skilled care for Veterans in the home for complex conditions like ALS, home infusions, and therapy.”
Those services can be the difference between a patient staying safely at home or cycling back through the hospital.
“For a lot of families, the question isn’t ‘Do we want home care?’” Cannicott said. “It’s ‘How do we keep mom or dad safe at home, and who can actually manage what’s happening medically?’ That’s where skilled support matters.”
Serving Veterans and supporting the spouse Cannicott said it is a distinct honor for his caregivers and nurses to serve Veterans and their families.
In Tulsa and across Oklahoma, BrightStar works with the Veteran community through the Homemaker and Home Health Aide program, providing CNAs and caregivers to help with activities of daily living.
But he believes the most important story for many Veteran households is what happens when care needs become complex – and the spouse or family caregiver is carrying an unsustainable load.
“We work with the Veteran community through the Homemaker Home Health Aide program,” he said. “And we also provide skilled care with Veterans in the home with help from the VA.
One example is ALS – they’re currently taking care of ALS patients at home, and those families need a much higher level of support.”
In progressive conditions like ALS, Cannicott says, the spouse is often under immense strain.
“We serve the Veteran by supporting the spouse,” he said. “Respite and professional help can keep the household intact.”
Cannicott says the Tulsa acquisition was not about adding dots on a map – it was about delivering consistent experience statewide, including Tulsa.
“We wanted to bring the same level of service across the entire state and bring that level to Tulsa,” he said. “That work took real effort, but now we’re seeing results.”
One family’s review reflects what the team aims to deliver – a partnership that helps people remain at home as long as safely possible.
“Working with our nurse, we were able to keep my parents at their home of 57 years for as long as we possibly could,” a recent reviewer wrote.
For Cannicott, the mission is straightforward: scale through quality, responsiveness, and clinical oversight.
“We’re proud of what we’ve built,” he said. “And we’re focused on doing it even better.”
Need help in Oklahoma?
BrightStar Care answers calls live 24/7. For Tulsa care needs – including same-day starts for many personal care situations, and skilled support for complex cases – call (918)-392-9949. For Oklahoma City, call (405)-896-9600 or scan this QR code. • story by Van Mitchell, staff writer
