Staying Flexible, Whatever the Challenge—Meet Our 2026 Nurse of the Year!

As part of this year’s Nurses Month celebration, we are delighted to announce that the 2026 VNS Health Nurse of the Year is… Jane Reilly, Clinical Care Manager in Personal Care!

This year, there were 47 nurses nominated for the Nurse of the Year Award, from which 8 finalists were selected. Please click here to see a list of all the nominees. The finalists are:

With over forty years’ experience in home care nursing—the last seven of them at VNS Health—Jane Reilly combines the skills of active listening, agile problem-solving, and deep collaboration as she manages the care of vulnerable New Yorkers who want to live safely and independently in their homes.

In her role as Clinical Care Manager, Jane is responsible for Queens and Long Island Personal Care clients as well as for approving all of the agency’s Private Care cases that involve clients receiving skilled nursing services. While she directly supervises a team of eight nurses, she positively impacts all those she works with. Whether it’s the Private Care intake team, Personal Care’s Home Health Aide (HHA) Supervisors, or the HHAs themselves, Jane teaches, guides, and builds confidence in her colleagues, and that mentorship creates a ripple effect in the quality of care.

One of her most memorable clients was an elderly man who was blind and lived in a walk-up apartment that had grown cluttered as a result of his hoarding. “His family lived out of town and paid privately for his care. He also received assistance from the Actors Guild, who was a key partner in putting his care in place,” Jane recalls.

Working with the insurer, Jane secured regular home health aide (HHA) services, found a visiting doctor to provide in-home care, and connected her client with a community vision program that helped equip his living space. To make his apartment more livable, Jane also secured coverage for a cleaning service. All of these steps pointed to a single goal: ensuring he could remain safely in his apartment.

Jane has been praised by colleagues as a “super empath” who is always ready to collaborate and invariably lifts up those around her. As one co-worker notes, “Jane has built strong, trusting relationships with the nurses she supervises and works alongside. Through consistent communication, support, and mentorship, she fosters a collaborative environment where nurses feel valued and empowered.”

The same is true of her work with clients and their families. “As a clinical care manager, I’ll ask family members a lot of questions,” Jane notes. “That helps me get a detailed picture of each client’s daily life at home, and where personal care and other services might be able to help.”

Armed with this information, Jane will immediately start putting together an array of solutions. Arranging for Personal Care HHAs to assist a client with activities of daily living is one key component, but she may also set up meal delivery and laundry pickup, have the client’s pharmacy supply prescription drugs in easy-to-use pre-poured or blister pack form, and connect her clients to other services across VNS Health and in the community.

“That’s how my brain works,” she explains. “What I think about is extremely varied, because my job is never the same from day to day.”

Jane came to nursing naturally. “When I was growing up, my parents cared for their own parents, either in the grandparents’ home or in our home” she remembers. “That natural progression carried over into my own career.” She especially loves home care nursing, she says, because it lets her work with people in the place that embodies “the essence of themselves.”

Above all, Jane understands the importance of staying flexible, no matter what challenges she may be facing. “That’s how I live my life,” she says. “You plan for A, then B happens, and then C and D as the day goes on. So I shift quickly with our team members as well as with clients and their families. That’s the way I’ve always approached nursing.”