Editor’s Note: McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Home Care are profiling the McKnight’s 2025 Women of Distinction honorees daily through Aug. 18. For additional McKnight’s Women of Distinction content, visit this page.

During an emergency, the answer to “Who you gonna call?” typically is the Ghostbusters, but at Skokie, IL-based Legacy Healthcare, the answer often is Pat Winkelman. 

As a regional guest relations director for 10 facilities, Winkelman specializes in communicating with vulnerable and concerned residents and their families, and this talent proved to be especially useful during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using her cell phone, she created a makeshift call center for two facilities, where she accepted all calls of concern to the nursing stations to ease the burdens on strapped and exhausted nurses. 

Winkelman also was instrumental in creating Legacy’s customer service training courses, for which topics include abuse and neglect, phone etiquette, life safety, customer service, and security management and rounding. As part of her duties, she conducts safety inspections of the 10 facilities across two regions and, as a result, saved lives when she discovered a gas leak at one.

For her contributions at Legacy and elsewhere, Winkleman earned a 2025 McKnight’s Women of Distinction Spirit Award.

She takes her work very seriously, and Winkelman also is committed to serving her community away from the clinical setting.

“Pat carries her mission of service throughout her life,” a colleague said. “She has done much for her community in Lake County, including work with Citizens for Conservation, Leave No Child Inside and the Girl Scouts of America, where she assists young women in achieving their gold badges. Pat is extremely selfless with her time and truly gives of herself 100% to everyone she encounters.”

The McKnight’s Women of Distinction program is jointly administered by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, McKnight’s Senior Living  and McKnight’s Home Care. Healthcare Services Group was the Platinum sponsor of this year’s festivities, and PharMerica was the Silver sponsor. Additional sponsors included Affinity Health Services, Curana Health, DirecTV for Business, EasyShifts, Guardian Pharmacy Services, Marquis Health Consulting Services, Priority Life Care, Reliant Rehabilitation, Reside Admissions and Sentrics.

Visit this web page to see lists of honorees from 2025 and previous years.