Valenti Leads As New Moundsville Healthcare Center Nursing Director

|Photo by Emma Delk| Autumn Valenti brings 35 years of nursing experience to the role of nursing director at the Moundsville Healthcare Center.
With 35 years of nursing experience under her belt, Autumn Valenti has joined the Moundsville Healthcare Center’s team as the Director of Nursing.
Valenti, who oversees 120 staff at the skilled nursing facility with 129 beds, said the role is the “same application” as the past managerial positions she has held at nursing facilities in Ohio but at a “higher level.”
“At my prior director of nursing jobs, the patient census at the facilities I worked at was anywhere from 50 to 80 beds, while we run about 130 beds here,” Valenti said. “I just wanted a bigger challenge with a larger organization and to see what I could do at this level.”
Valenti is currently earning her master’s degree in science of nursing from Chamberlain University. She noted her undergraduate degree in executive leadership from the same university has prepared her for the organizational challenges of operating a larger facility.
Valenti said the facility covers a “broad spectrum” of patients, including elderly members of the population who can no longer care for themselves, patients in post-surgical care and residents with acute health issues in need of therapy.
A Minnesota native, Valenti discovered her passion for nursing in junior high school when she attended physical therapy for an ankle injury at a local nursing home in her hometown. While attending outpatient physical therapy at the facility, Valenti began to bond with the residents.
“I went to the nursing home for physical therapy, and from that first day, I was completely enamored with the elderly population,” Valenti recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘That’s what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.'”
Valenti took her certified nursing assistant license test at 15 years old so she could begin working as a nursing assistant “as soon as possible” at 16 years old. Due to the low wages she made as a state-tested nurses aide, Valetni worked as a Certified NASA Welder for three and a half years while in nursing school to fund her education.
“Other than those three years as a welder, my entire working life, which is now 35 years, has been devoted to the elderly,” Valenti said.
Valenti’s devotion to the elderly has carried through to her work at the Moundsville Healthcare Center, as she strives to foster a “culture of kindness and teamwork” at the facility. She noted that evidence based data shows a culture of teamwork and kindness amongst staff at a skilled nursing facility “improves patient outcomes.”
“What carries me forward in this career, particularly during COVID, which was hard on all of nursing, is the passion to care for the elderly,” Valenti said. “They’ve spent decades on this planet making the world a better place, and there’s a great honor in taking care of them and making their lives better.”
Valenti added she was “always looking” for additional problems to solve and ways to improve the facility. She noted the need to be adaptable and ready to manage any emergency that arises at the facility while also managing day-to-day operations.
“We’re on call 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year, so I might have my schedule for the day planned out, but then an emergency arises that I have to adapt my whole day to,” Valenti said. “Flexibility and grit are the key to handle that. Sometimes you’re dealing with people who are upset their loved one isn’t doing well, and sometimes they project that onto us as nurses, so we have to navigate that.”
Valenti credited the facility’s nursing team for their teamwork and ” great sense of humor,” as well as Diane Miller, Moundsville Healthcare Center executive leader, for helping her increase the quality of care at the center and promote a culture of teamwork and kindness at the facility.
“We all use laughter and jokes to take the stress of the day off,” Valenti said. “It’s been challenging sometimes, but very worth it.”