Yahaira Ramirez Rn

Direc­tor of Clin­i­cal Oper­a­tions Yahaira Ramirez RN says, ​“I feel priv­i­leged to know Res­i­dents. They’re such intrigu­ing peo­ple and I am proud to be their advo­cate.” As a nurse and Smith Village’s direc­tor of nurs­ing for near­ly 10 years before becom­ing Smith Senior Living’s direc­tor of clin­i­cal oper­a­tions, Yahaira has her own ideas about what make Smith com­mu­ni­ties spe­cial. ​“We pro­vide care for Res­i­dents as they tran­si­tion through lev­els of liv­ing. We’re the one con­stant in a chang­ing world for them and their families.”

In her new posi­tion, she leads 200 CNAs, LPNs and RNs car­ing for Smith Cross­ing and Smith Vil­lage Res­i­dents. She is proud to say, ​“we pro­vide very good qual­i­ty care because our health­care pro­fes­sion­als make sure they are aware of each Resident’s needs and they are skilled to pro­vide the care they give.” For fam­i­lies, ​“it’s com­fort­ing to know we are doing a good job.” And for employ­ees, ​“it’s very ben­e­fi­cial to watch them grow. Some CNAs return to school to become LPNs or RNs.”

Respond­ing to the chal­lenge of work­ing with nurs­es on two cam­pus­es rather than walk­ing the floor of only one, she says, ​“I believe in build­ing rela­tion­ships with my col­leagues, to have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the needs and aspi­ra­tions of both staff and res­i­dents.” She adds, ​“I am hon­ored to be entrust­ed with con­tin­u­al­ly eval­u­at­ing both cam­pus­es to make sure we’re con­sis­tent­ly meet­ing and exceed­ing top qual­i­ty standards.”