RWJBarnabas Health Southern Region Nursing Leadership

Located At:
300 Second Avenue
Long Branch, New Jersey 07740

Diann Johnston, MSN, RN, NEA-BC
Chief Nursing Officer
Southern Region

Diann Johnston has extensive experience at the executive level in acute care hospital operations. She has held highly complex positions and has provided leadership across the patient care enterprise through mergers, acquisitions and closure. Before joining RWJBarnabas Health (RWJBH), she served as Chief Operating Officer for Bon Secours Health System Inc.

She joined Monmouth Medical Center, an RWJBH facility as Chief Nursing Officer and was later promoted to Chief Nursing Officer for the RWJBH Southern Region. At MMC, she led patient care services to top tier performance in quality, engagement and safety and was recognized with numerous national awards, including 14 consecutive Leap Frog A’s, 4 Star CMS rating, IBM Watson Top 100 Hospitals, the Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence award and Magnet Recognition with 7 exemplars.

She is an alumna of Rutgers College of Nursing where she received a Bachelor’s in Science in Nursing and a Master’s of Science in Nursing Administration from Wagner College. She is recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a Board Certified Nurse Executive, advanced since 2002. She has served on numerous boards, is published in Journal of Nursing Administration, has spoken on national podiums and was awarded 2019 Nurse Executive of the Year by the NJ Organization of Nurse Leaders.