Alberta's Story

As a retired Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, consultant, speaker, and a health & wellness coach, she inspires people of all ages to be empowered from within. As a stroke survivor, she brings the voice of the patient into her work as a health provider, speaker, and health coach. Ms. Longone-Messer has more than 4 decades of experience as a business owner and health care provider with youth, from infancy through young adult. Using entertaining stories, Ms. Longone-Messer engages her clients and groups of all ages with common-sense ways to address health challenges.

​

She completed her undergraduate nursing training at Leominster Hospital School of Nursing, in Massachusetts and St Anselm College in New Hampshire, and obtained her Nurse Practitioner degree from Northeastern University in Massachusetts. She has worked for over 40 years as a pediatric nurse practitioner in New Hampshire, Florida, and Maine. Her diverse clinical work experience included: private pediatric & adolescent practice, school health centers, college health centers, rural health, and medical missions. Her public speaking captured recognition from medical, nursing and allied healthcare audiences nationally and internationally.

​

Ms. Longone-Messer was the former Director/CEO of Nurse Response. The first nurse-owned and managed triage nurse call center for hospitals, community health centers, private pediatric and family health practices, HMOs’, and colleges for over 15 years.

​

Her extensive business experience includes the ownership of a successful family health practice, Health Dimensions of New Hampshire, led by a team of nurse practitioners. She and her staff of pediatric and family nurse practitioners were instrumental in expanding health services on college/university campuses across New Hampshire. During the era of deinstitutionalizing for the developmentally disabled, this family practice of nurse practitioners and 2 consulting physicians were instrumental in mainstreaming and promoting primary care and specialty services for those children and adults that were institutionalized in New Hampshire.

​

As founding member of the New Hampshire Public Health Association, and task force member with the State of New Hampshire Health and Human Services, Ms. Longone-Messer contributed to the development and implementation of community-based health clinics throughout the state. She was the past Executive Director of New Hampshire Nurse Practitioner Association and was actively involved in the nurse practitioner movement in NH and in the United States with regards to independent practice, prescriptive authority, and third-party reimbursement. Her work towards the advancement of nursing practice resulted in the achievement of several “Nurse Practitioner of the Year” awards at both the state and national level.

​

Ms. Longone Messer broke through the media when nurse practitioners were not recognized in most states. As a national speaker and advocate of the nurse practitioner role in all specialties, she started to spread the word with the first nurse practitioner radio show, Health Encounter in NH. The radio sequences focused on health resources and specialties in NH. She conducted on-site interviews with health providers and public health agencies servicing all ages.

​

Ms. Longone-Messer is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition where she holds national and international certifications in Health & Wellness Coaching. Her focus of individual and group coaching is with youth and adults onsite and virtual. IIN’s curriculum included courses in nutrition, health & wellness concepts, and dynamic business skills. She is a strong proponent of primary and secondary foods and the impact it has on health and wellbeing. The program centers around Bio-individuality and primary foods which explains that health is based on more than just nutrition. Rather, it includes other factors such as healthy relationships, physical activity, social life, education, spiritual practice, and a fulfilling career.

​

As a nationally certified pediatric nurse practitioner, she continues to address the public health needs of children and the underserved, while promoting effective telephone triage services for the community. She has been involved with volunteer medical/nursing team members for Helping Hands Mission and Medical Missions Network USA in Guatemala. Up until the COVID pandemic impacted healthcare agencies, she practiced as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in the clinical setting while fulfilling her position as a School-Based Health Services Consultant with Federally Qualified Health Centers.

​

Joining humanitarian efforts are an important part of her and her family’s lives. She continues her volunteering as a Director of the Guatemala Water & Sanitation Project. A project that started in 2014, with a committed team of medical mission volunteers, GUA local professionals, and Rotarians from the US and Guatemala, to build fresh water wells for communities to share. Ms. Longone-Messer, a Rotarian for 7 years, is President of Long Beach Rotary Club in Long Beach, Mississippi. Her husband Bill Messer, a Chemist in Water Treatment, is also a Rotarian. They have three children and nine grandchildren.

​

Her R&R time is spent with family and her love of sculpturing, swimming, and theater.