Kim Billingslea, BSN, RN, NE-BC, Manager of the Joint Replacement Center and the neuroscience and renal units at the Memorial Hospital at Easton, has been named director of patient safety and advocacy for Shore Health System. In this new position, she will serve as patient safety officer and the patient and family advocate. She will interact with patients, family members and clinical care providers to address issues related to patient safety and customer satisfaction.

Billingslea, who lives in Easton, began her nursing career as a staff nurse for the telemetry unit at Memorial Hospital in 1989 after graduating with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland at Baltimore Nursing School. In 1992, she was promoted to assistant nurse manager of the Memorial Hospital neuroscience unit and, in 2001, she became clinical coordinator for this unit and for the medical-surgical unit and the Joint Replacement Center. Billingslea transferred to Dorchester General Hospital in 2003, where she was nurse manager for the multi-specialty unit. She returned to Memorial Hospital in 2005, taking responsibility for the neuroscience and renal units as well as the Joint Replacement Center.

Billingslea is board certified as a nurse executive by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Under her leadership, Memorial Hospital earned designation as a primary stroke center from the Maryland Institute of Emergency Medical Services Systems in 2007 and the Joint Replacement Center earned several national quality distinctions for its excellence in patient care.

”We are thrilled to add Kim to the quality team at Shore Health,” says Michael Tooke, MD, chief medical officer for Shore Health System. “In this new position, she will dedicate more attention to understanding how to keep our patients safe while they are under our care. Kim will also support the patient advocacy role that our patients and families have come to rely on.”