Marie Manthey

Manthey was named a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing in 2015. The Living Legends designation honors individuals with "extraordinary contributions to the nursing profession, sustained over the course of their careers."

The principles of Primary Nursing were later expanded to include people in all health care disciplines and departments, and clinicians seeing themselves as the "primary" caregiver or service provider to each patient and family became the core of the Relationship-Based Care Model of care delivery (Koloroutis, 2004). Marie Manthey's leadership has allowed the work started by the nurses on Unit 32 at the University of Minnesota Medical Center to be expanded and shared worldwide.

Manthey has also remained active with the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, including serving as the President of the Nursing Alumni Society from 1999 to 2003.

Manthey provided technical guidance to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for their study of Primary Nursing, published in 1983.

In 1978, she founded a consulting firm specializing in the organization and delivery of health care services. Originally named Creative Nursing Management, now known as Creative HealthCare Management since 2002, headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA.

After leaving the University of Minnesota, Manthey became Assistant Administrator and Director of Nursing at Miller Hospital as it merged with St. Lukes to become United Hospitals of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Manthey moved to New Haven, Connecticut in January 1976, and served as the Vice President of Patient Services at Yale New Haven Hospital. During that time in Connecticut she also served as associate professor at the University of Connecticut and associate clinical professor at Yale School of Nursing.

While serving as Assistant Director of Nursing at the University of Minnesota Hospital, Manthey was head of a team of nurses that implemented Primary Nursing in 1968-1969 on Unit 32, an acute medical care ward. Manthey was later named Associate Director of Nursing at the University of Minnesota.

In 1968 Primary Nursing evolved from the work of a team of direct care providers on Unit 32 at the University of Minnesota Medical Center who were experiencing extreme frustration with their chaotic work environment. The result was a nursing delivery system that was "too fragmented and diffuse -- one in which 'everybody's responsible for everything and nobody's responsible for anything'."

Manthey received a diploma in nursing from St. Elizabeth Hospital in Chicago, Illinois in 1956. After passing the Illinois State Boards, she joined the University of Chicago Medical Center as a staff nurse, and then became an assistant head nurse and then head nurse on a twenty-bed surgical floor there. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing Administration in 1962 and her Master of Science, Nursing Administration in 1964, both from the University of Minnesota School of Nursing in Minneapolis. Manthey was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1999.

Marie Schuber Manthey (born July 17, 1935) is an American nurse, author, and entrepreneur. She is recognized as one of the originators of Primary Nursing, an innovative system of nursing care delivery.