University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health (UM UCH) has appointed Michelle D’Alessandro, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, as the organization’s Chief Nursing Officer.
D’Alessandro comes to UM UCH from Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where she most recently served as Senior Director of Nursing-Medicine and Maternal Child Health. In this role she was responsible for the operational outcomes for the Division of Medicine including Pediatrics Emergency Department, pediatric inpatient, the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit, labor and delivery, obstetrics acute and the newborn nursery. She also led COVID initiatives within the Department of Medicine, which included converting the observation unit to a COVID floor; relocating the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit; transitioning the Intensive Care Unit and general floor to BIOMODE; and assisted with inpatient vaccination.
“We are so pleased to have Michelle join us as Chief Nursing Officer,” said Elizabeth Wise, MSN, MBA, President and Chief Executive Officer of UM UCH. “Her experience in nursing is wide-ranging and will help us as we continue to provide the highest quality care to all.”
Prior to joining Bayview, D’Alessandro served in several roles at John Hopkins Hospital including Assistant Director of Nursing-Surgery and Nurse Manager. She is a nursing adjunct faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and at Stevenson University.
D’Alessandro earned a doctor of nursing practice degree from the University of Maryland School of Nursing, a master’s in the management of health care systems from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Villanova University.
She has received several awards including the Clinical Excellence Team Award for COVID Care in 2021 from Johns Hopkins Health System and the VP Award 2021 and the Medicine Housestaff Award 2020 from Bayview. D’Alessandro has also been a presenter and speaker at various conferences and summits on the topic of medication administration interruptions and distractions.
About University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health
University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, part of the University of Maryland Medical System, includes the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center and the Patricia D. and M. Scot Kaufman Cancer Center on its Bel Air campus. Most recently, it opened The Klein Family Harford Crisis Center in Bel Air offering services for behavioral health. The Senator Bob Hooper House in Forest Hill is an assisted living facility that specializes in hospice. The University of Maryland Harford Memorial Hospital has been operating in the community for over a century and is located in Havre de Grace. The leading health care system and the second largest private employer in Harford County, UM Upper Chesapeake Health offers a broad range of health care services, specialty care, technology and facilities to the residents of northeastern Maryland. Visit www.umms.org/uch for more information.
About the University of Maryland Medical System
The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is an academic private health system, focused on delivering compassionate, high quality care and putting discovery and innovation into practice at the bedside. Partnering with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland, Baltimore who educate the state’s future health care professionals, UMMS is an integrated network of care, delivering 25 percent of all hospital care in urban, suburban and rural communities across the state of Maryland. UMMS puts academic medicine within reach through primary and specialty care delivered at 11 hospitals, including the flagship University of Maryland Medical Center, the System’s anchor institution in downtown Baltimore, as well as through a network of University of Maryland Urgent Care centers and more than 150 other locations in 13 counties. For more information, visit www.umms.org.
