Heather Gilmartin, PhD, NP is a research health scientist and health services researcher in the Denver/Seattle Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value Driven Care at the Rocky Mountain Regional Veteran Health Administration (VA) Medical Center. From 2014-2016, she was a VA post-doctoral nurse fellow. Her research focus is on understanding and optimizing the culture of healthcare to enhance employee well-being and patient safety. She aims to achieve this by facilitating organizational learning through the implementation and dissemination of high reliability practices such as team training, mindfulness, leadership coaching, and relational coordination. In 2019, she was awarded a VA Career Development Award to study supportive learning environments in VA cardiac catheterization laboratories.

Dr. Gilmartin completed her undergraduate degree from Boston College, her master’s degree from Yale University, and her doctorate from the University of Colorado. Her 20+ years of clinical practice as a family nurse practitioner has included acute care, family practice, pediatrics, infection prevention, epidemiology, and public health nursing. She is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, School of Public Health and adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado, School of Nursing. Dr. Gilmartin is also a executive leadership coach with the VA Leadership Coaching Cadre.

Her recent research includes investigations on the role of psychological safety and mindfulness on healthcare providers and patient outcomes, the role of care coordination on Veteran outcomes, and a national survey to establish the state of learning environments and high reliability practices in VA cardiac catheterization laboratories. She has published multiple methodological papers pertaining to structural equation modeling and psychometric analyses of surveys, along with novel implementation methods such as the brainwriting premortem. Dr. Gilmartin created the Relational Playbook for Cardiology Teams, a guide to help healthcare teams thrive in the workplace. The Playbook was patented as an innovation by the VA and is currently be implemented in multiple settings.

Dr.Gilmartin collaborates actively with researchers in several disciplines, including medicine, organization psychology, management, economics, anthropology and dissemination and implementation science. These collaborations have led to multiple projects published in high-impact journals such as the BMJ, BMJ Quality and Safety, Nursing Research and Implementation Science.

Heather has received numerous awards including induction into the Sigma Theta Tau Honor Society of Yale University, the Colorado Nightingale Luminary Award for Nursing Excellence (2005 & 2014), and scholarships for academic excellence during her doctoral studies and from professional societies. In 2017, she was inducted as a fellow of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). In 2023, Dr. Gilmartin was recognized as the APIC Distinguished Scientist.

Heather is an active member of APIC. She has served on the APIC Public Policy Committee and APIC Research Committee, where she led efforts to publish six research papers using data from a national APIC workforce survey. She is a member of the American Journal of Infection Control Editorial Board and has been the Infographic Editor since 2017, assisting authors in creating visual abstracts to support dissemination and translation of research into practice. Most recently, Heather has been elected a member-at-large for the AcademyHealth Learning Health Systems Interest Group.

Heather lives in the mountains of Colorado with her husband, the owner of a coffee roasting company and their two sons. To keep up with her family, Heather is a masters swimmer and trains with friends for triathlons and trail running races. Her weekends are spent Telemark skiing and mountain biking. Heather was a nationally ranked high-school and collegiate sailor prior to moving to Colorado and still dreams of the ocean.