Valley Health Welcomes First System-Wide Chief Nursing Executive

Theresa L. Trivette, DNP, RN, CENP, joined Valley Health this week as its first Chief Nursing Executive (CNE), assuming responsibility for leadership of all nursing functions across the organization, advancing patient experience efforts, and collaborating in quality and patient safety initiatives.

“We are excited to welcome Theresa to the Valley Health Executive Leadership Team,” said Mark Nantz, Valley Health President and CEO. “Her engagement on our system leadership team will be valuable as we make decisions that impact our staff, patients and the community we serve. Theresa has an encouraging, data-driven leadership style, proven ability to communicate and collaborate across interdisciplinary teams, and a genuine passion for ensuring safe, high-quality patient care that will be an asset as we focus on providing best-in-class patient experience in all of our inpatient and outpatient settings.”

Most recently, Trivette served as chief nursing officer for Ballad Health in the Kingsport, TN, market. She has more than 20 years of experience in nursing leadership and has a proven record of improving quality of care and patient experience for both large and small healthcare organizations, including Advent Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health. She has extensive experience in quality improvement and is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (CLSSBB), the highest level of proficiency for this collaborative method of process improvement and organizational change.

"I am honored to serve Valley Health in this new role as the chief nurse executive,” said Trivette. "I will work to assure consistent patient care practices and standards, and educate and mentor nursing staff and nursing leadership across our system. We will establish a vision and strategy together with our clinical and support colleagues to deliver exceptional patient experiences and outcomes. My immediate goal is to do everything possible to support the tireless efforts of the Valley Health care teams during this pandemic while creating a vision for the future as we continue to focus on clinical excellence.”

Trivette earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the Medical University of South Carolina, a master’s degree in nursing administration from Gardner-Webb University, a bachelor’s degree in health care management and project management from the University of Maryland, and an associate’s degree in nursing from the College of Southern Maryland. She is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and holds the Certified in Executive Nursing Practice (CENP) credential from the American Organization of Nurse Leaders.

Trivette serves as a senior examiner on the board of examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest recognition awarded to organizations for performance excellence. She holds collaborative faculty and advisory positions on several university and college of nursing program councils in Florida and Tennessee.

Trivette and her husband, Scott, look forward to making their new home in the region and discovering all the area has to offer.