Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Children's Hospital of New Jersey

Located at:
201 Lyons Avenue at Osborne Terrace
Newark, New Jersey 07112

Denise Shepherd, MA, RN
Chief Nursing Officer
Newark Beth Israel Medical Center
Children’s Hospital of New Jersey
Newark, NJ

Denise Shepherd, MA, RN, is Chief Nursing Officer at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of New Jersey. She has been a member of our organization for more than 30 years. Denise joined Newark Beth Israel in 2015 as Director of Quality and was named Chief Quality Officer in 2019. Prior to that, she was a nursing leader at Saint Barnabas Medical Center (now Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center), where she started her career as a cardiac step-down nurse in 1984, she quickly moved into nursing leadership, holding several administrative positions including Nurse Manager, Director of Nursing Finance, Director of Nursing Administration, and Nurse Executive/VP of Patient Care Services (Chief Nursing Officer).

Denise and her team ushered in have been critical to the success of our Safety Together journey. Under her leadership we instituted leadership rounding, daily safety huddles, and our daily leadership safety huddle. Today, we have reduced our serious safety event rate by 80 percent, the greatest safety improvement in the RWJBarnabas Health system. Her steadfast commitment to our patients, visitors and employees are on display every day at The Beth.

Denise received her BSN from Vanderbilt University and her master’s degree from New York University.