Dr. Paulmeno is President of the Connecticut Nurses Association; Chairman of The Patient is U Foundation, Inc., and CEO of Global Health Systems Consultants, a public health consulting firm she has owned/operated since 2009. She holds a Doctorate in Nursing from Quinnipiac University, Bachelors and Master’s degrees in Gerontology, licensure as a nursing home administrator, and has a certificate in Forensic Nursing through the International Association of Forensic Nurses. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she obtained credentials as a COVID-19 Contact Tracer/telehealth volunteer with the Greenwich Medical Reserve Corps. She is Nationally Board Certified in Public Health, Case Management, and as a Dementia Practitioner. She brings over 53 years of experience and practice as a Registered Professional Nurse in public health, psychiatric nursing, and the gamut of long-term care. She currently works as a Public Health Nurse/Public Health Promotion Specialist, and a Gerontologist.
After decades in long-term care, Dr. Paulmeno served nearly a decade as Director of Community Health Planning for the Greenwich Department of Health. She coordinated the planning team wrote the pandemic response plans for Avian Flu, SARS, and for each of the biologic agents of bioterrorism, which included creating a planning template for nursing homes as well as the plan for the mass immunization of the Town. She educated professionals and the public on these plans.
She sits on numerous Boards, Advisory Boards, and Task Forces that address the elderly, prevention in the areas of substance misuse, suicide, and problem gambling; and health equity and social justice. She is a member of numerous nursing associations, the International Nursing Honor Society, the Connecticut Public Health Association, and the American Gerontological Society. She was twice elected to local public office and was an appointed State Commissioner on the Connecticut Commission on Health Equity for its 8-year duration. She works with community-based health, public health, mental health, and social services professionals and groups covering people across the age span and those with special needs; she works with law offices and the courts, with medical practices, places of worship, with legislators and with Departments of Health. She co-hosted a local public health radio show, The Sterling Health Show that ran for a year on 1490 WGCH AM Radio.
She speaks nationally on nursing, pandemics, COVID-19, aging, dementia, health, and mental health & addiction; she discusses health systems/health reform, leadership; disaster planning, and care coordination. She has been a speaker, a panelist, a facilitator, and a keynote speaker at several conventions and forums.