About
Kathleen Valentine is a professor in Clemson University’s School of Nursing and project director for the HRSA-funded GoMobile project (UK146052). Dr. Valentine is an international leader in nursing education having held positions as dean of nursing at the University of New Brunswick, Canada, as well as associate dean positions at Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professions, Florida State University’s College of Nursing and department chair and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Dr. Valentine has also held various clinical positions, including director for Patient Care Services at Kaiser Peranente and director of the Memory and Wellness Center and Diabetes Center at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing at Florida Atlantic University. She has also led regional and national initiatives to advance professional nursing practice and consulted with national and international health care organizations that range from Mayo Clinic to the Moscow Psychologic Institute. Dr. Valentine’s research focuses on the economic value of human caring, nurse-managed primary care clinics, and inter-professional collaboration related to services for the aging. Dr. Valentine is also an affiliated faculty member for the Clemson University Institute for Engaged Aging. She is a past president of the International Association for Human Caring and founding editor for the International Journal for Human Caring that began in 1997. She is also the author of the book, “Health Care System Transformation for Nursing and Health Care Leaders: Implementing a Culture of Caring.”
Visit Dr. Valentine's Faculty Profile.
How their research is transforming health care
When she began her program of research in the Science of Human Caring, the concept was undefined, under-researched and undervalued. In the International Journal for Human Caring’s first year of publication, scholarship production related to caring in nursing increased 160 percent. The Science of Human Caring is now a core concept within health care delivery systems. For example, measures of patient care experience in national surveys (HESI and Press Ganey) are in part, based on the Science of Human Caring. Low patient care experience scores lead to reduced reimbursement. In short, caring matters in health care. She applies Caring Science within the work she does on transforming delivery systems for vulnerable populations (the aged and persons with chronic health conditions), capacity building within interprofessional teams to increase competencies that reduce error and improve the patient care experience, and education for future health care professionals. Recently, she has worked with faculty from the Department of Health Architecture to examine the healing effect of the built environment in patient care. She is the president of the Clemson University Academy for Nursing Excellence in Design and core leaders for the Clemson University Center for Research on Health Disparities.
News and media related to their research
- Clemson News - Clemson professors, national nursing leaders create health care design certificate for clinical and leadership nurses
- Clemson News - Hearst Foundation provides scholarships for diversity in nursing
- Springer Publishing Company – “Health Care System Tranformation for Nursing and Health Care Leaders”
- Clemson University - Expansion of Clemson University School of Nursing in Collaboration with Greenville Health System
Health Research Expertise Keywords
Faculty Scholar, Caring science, interprofessional competencies, education and practice, population health, aging, vulnerable groups, workforce capacity building, transforming health care delivery
