Editor’s Note: McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living are profiling the McKnight’s 2021 Women of Distinction honorees daily July 6 through Aug. 6. To see the 2021 McKnight’s 2021 Women of Distinction awards ceremony, register for free here. For additional profiles of McKnight’s Women of Distinction, visit this page.

Jaime Brady headshot
Jaime Brady

Jaime Brady possesses the rare ability to look back on her childhood and know she is where she is meant to be. 

As a child, Brady lived across the street from a nursing home in Minneapolis and visited weekly to paint ceramics with the residents. She didn’t miss a single day, she proudly recalls. 

Brady subsequently entered nursing school and worked at a memory care community as a certified nursing assistant. After graduating, she sampled working in a hospital as a registered nurse but quickly realized that she was meant to work in long-term care.

Brady was offered the position of director of nursing at a Galtier center in Minnesota just 18 months after her return. “[I was] excited, scared and proud. It was the proudest moment for me in my life,” she says.

Then, after serving in a regional nursing position for approximately five years, she advanced to her current role of senior director of clinical operations for Villa Healthcare in Lincolnwood, IL. Brady learned the ropes of her new role while also grappling with a pandemic hitting the facilities under her direction. In addition, she had four new buildings in her portfolio in a state with regulations with which she was unfamiliar. Despite all of those challenges, she was able to successfully assume her role and handle the pandemic. 

Colleagues say that the outbreak of COVID-19 was where Brady earned her stripes as a leader. When organizational leaders were out sick and her staff members were overwhelmed with two COVID-19 units, the team still succeeded wonderfully, as evidenced by the receipt of no citations after five infection control surveys. 

Outside of work, Brady began raising a small flock of chickens in her backyard with her two daughters and husband, as a pandemic project. Her husband built the coop, and the kids painted the names of the chickens inside. All of the birds are named after chicken dishes. 

The McKnight’s Women of Distinction program is jointly administered by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living. The program’s Diamond sponsor is PointClickCare, and the Roundtable Sponsor is Paycor.