Editor’s note: McKnight’s Home Care, McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living are profiling the McKnight’s 2022 Women of Distinction honorees daily July 5 through Aug. 10. For additional McKnight’s Women of Distinction content, visit this page.

Mary Jean McKeveny holds that for caregivers to succeed, they need to care for themselves.

“Mary Jean believes that self-care is key to a caregiver’s ability to care for others, and she is committed to helping others master the tools they need to recharge and relax,” Gurwin Healthcare System Chief Public Relations Officer Dennine Cook said.

McKeveny achieves this goal by teaching her staff tai chi, presenting them with crystals and stones, and guiding them through meditations.

“She is a teacher and mentor and is often found leading the nursing home staff in short meditations to help them decompress and reset,” Cook explained. 

McKeveny’s belief has accompanied her throughout her almost 30 years working in home care. Before joining Gurwin in 2018, she served a lengthy tenure with ArchCare at Home in a role of advancing clinical innovation. 

In her current position, as director of clinical innovation at Gurwin, she works with all departments and on a variety of projects to enhance care transitions and implement technology to improve care.

She also works with the Gurwin Jewish HealthCare Foundation to apply for grants aimed at improving care transitions, devising dementia care initiatives and increasing clinical growth.

In addition to McKeveny’s work in healthcare, she also has a passion for research and has worked with the Weill Cornell on the Care of the Older Adult with Depression project, on United Hospital Fund’s Care Transitions Quality Improvement Collaborative and in Stony Brook’s medication management clinical trial.

She also has presented to multiple national and local clinical groups on subjects such as telehealth, nurse coaching, implementing care transitions and home care.

McKeveny is an adjunct professor in the St. Joseph’s College School of Nursing, her alma mater. In addition to her many other plaudits, she was named Program Manager of the Year by the Visiting Nurse Association of America in 2013 and was awarded the St. Joseph’s College Alumni Achievement Award in Health Care and Human Services.

The McKnight’s Women of Distinction program is jointly administered by McKnight’s Home Care, McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living. The program’s Diamond sponsor is PointClickCare. Silver sponsors include OnShift and PharMerica, and the Bronze sponsor is Reliant Rehabilitation. Table sponsors included Dreamscape, Gojo/Purell and Sound Physicians.