Editor’s Note: The McKnight’s Long-Term Care NewsDaily Update and McKnight’s Senior Living Daily Briefing e-newsletters are profiling each of the McKnight’s 2019 Women of Distinction in July. For more coverage, visit the McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living websites and read the July print edition of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and August print edition of McKnight’s Senior Living.
Jennifer Maina’s successes began early. At her first nursing job in Buffalo, NY, she was promoted from LPN to charge nurse within the first year.
From there, she moved to Wichita, KS, and joined HCR ManorCare as a unit manager. That’s where she began to perform MDS assessments. She subsequently began a new role at Life Care Center of Andover as a unit manager and MDS coordinator. She moved to Family Health and Rehab as MDS coordinator before returning to Life Care, where she has spent nine years previously.
At that point, she already had returned to school to pursue her RN / BSN degree at National American University. In 2016, she graduated at the top of her class, passed her boards and delivered the commencement address. NAU has since invited her back to give the commencement address to a subsequent class of graduating nurses.
While in nursing school, Maina left Life Care and joined Larksfield as an MDS coordinator. She was promoted to assistant director of nursing and infection control officer after her graduation. In 2017, she became the director of nursing and oversaw the clinical care of more than 300 residents.
Recently, she left Larksfield to become a MDS coordinator at Presbyrtarian Manors of Mid-America.
The past two years, she has presented at LeadingAge’s national conferences, which has led to the opportunity to write books on urinary tract and other infections, assessments, delegation and nursing practice. All four books are set to be published this year.
She says one of her proudest accomplishments has been raising her daughter and son as a single mother.
McKnight’s Women of Distinction is a joint program of McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
The McKnight’s Women of Distinction program’s exclusive Platinum sponsor is PointClickCare.
