Maria Orsini, EDD, RN

Maria Orsini is the Chief Nurse, Performance Improvement at Durham VA Health Care System. Dr. Orsini’s vision is to lead the way of improvement. Through innovative ideas and numerical data, her office pulls people together, moves ideas forward, bolsters up change, and finds collaborative solutions. She has a doctoral degree in educational leadership and a master’s in nursing. Maria started her nursing career at the San Juan VA Medical Center, Puerto Rico, in Medicine and Surgical Intensive Care Units. After that, she came to North Carolina as Commissioned Officer with the Public Health Service, and as such provided mental health crisis management and healthcare to federal inmates in the Federal Medical Center, Butner, NC. She became familiar with Durham VA while serving 10 years as Nursing Instructor at Vance-Granville Community College. Then, until promoted, she was the Emergency Department Nurse Educator for seven years. All along, she has been creating, supporting, and providing leadership, teaching, and mentorship opportunities to members of the interprofessional team, and scholarship opportunities through interprofessional research and professional academic collaborations with Duke and UNC.