Teresa Welch

Associate Professor

Education

  • EdD, Instructional Leadership for Nurse Educators, The University of Alabama, 2016
  • MSN, Case Management, The University of Alabama, 2014
  • BSN, Nursing, The University of Alabama, 1987

Biography

Dr. Welch holds a Nurse Executive Advanced Board Certification, with extensive experience in operations management and team building.

Dr Welch joined the Capstone College of Nursing in 2016 with twenty-two years of nursing leadership and management experience and a combined thirty years of nursing experience in critical care and the adult ICU. With her broad background in nursing leadership, Dr Welch’s area of expertise and focus of research is leadership science and nursing leadership and management in healthcare.

As an innovative leader and change agent, Dr Welch worked with an interdisciplinary team to develop and implement a system-wide rapid response team to provide early detection and treatment of at risk patients within the organization. She restructured and re-organized the organizations Code Blue process for emergency response and resuscitation to integrate evidence based best practice standards into the resuscitation process and provide a comprehensive data driven program focused on quality patient outcomes and continuous quality improvement.  During her tenure in nursing management, Dr Welch managed the construction and opening of two sixteen bed state-of-the-art intensive care units, developed and implemented a system-wide Peripherally Inserted Central Line (PICC) team and departmental Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (CRRT) team for critical care while maintaining top performing units in the organization who consistently exceeded organizational benchmarks for employee satisfaction and quality indicators for patient care and outcomes.

Honors and Awards

  • Lamplighter Award, Alabama League for Nursing, 2021
  • Certified On-line Teaching Certification – Quality Matters, 2021
  • Co-recipient of the National League of Nursing (NLN) Center of Excellence Designation (Advancing the Science of Nursing Education) for the Capstone College of Nursing National League of Nursing (NLN) recognized Center for Excellence in Nursing Education, 2018-2020
  • DCH Regional Medical Center Employee Excellence Award, 2011

Areas of Interest

  • Rural Health
  • Nursing Education & Professional Development
  • Nursing Administration

Scholarly Highlights

  • 2021 Summer Seed Grant Saxon Endowment. Competency Assessment and Development: A Needs Assessment for Nursing Leadership in Rural Hospitals in the Alabama Black Belt Region.
  • Nursing leadership in rural hospitals: A competency needs assessment. Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, 22(1).
  • Are nurse managers prepared for the business and financial aspects of patient care? Journal of Nursing Administration.
  • Anatomy of the Business Case. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 46(1), 88-95.
  • Health insurance and reimbursement. In Waxman, K.T. & Knighten, M.L. (Eds.), Financial and Business Management for the Doctor of Nursing Practice, (3rd ed., pp.). Springer Publishing Company.