Staff report

A Washington native has been named as director of patient care at Vidant Beaufort Hospital, the same hospital where she began her nursing career nearly 38 years ago.
Kathy Lynch Simpson, who began her career as a staff nurse in the emergency room at then-Beaufort County Hospital, was appointed to the executive leadership team headed by Vidant Beaufort Hospital President Harvey Case.
Chris Winters has been named vice president of financial services for Vidant Beaufort Hospital and Vidant Pungo Hospital.
Simpson, a 1971 graduate of Washington High School, earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing a the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
She also holds a master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of South Carolina.
In 1976, after earning her bachelor’s degree, Simpson joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps where she served for 29 years. During that career, Simpson served at every nursing leadership level including senior nurse staff officer in the office of the Army Surgeon General.
In 1990, Simpson deployed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the 86th Evacuation Hospital in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Among her military awards are the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star.
After retiring from the Army in 2005, Simpson returned to Washington and served as a clinical assistant professor at East Carolina University’s College of Nursing for six years before joining the staff at Vidant Beaufort Hospital.
Simpson is a graduate of many Army and health-care courses, including the Interagency Institute for Federal Health Care Executives at George Washington University. She is also a member of the Class of 2002 Johnson & Johnson/Wharton Fellows program for nurse executives, Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Winters brings 20 years experience in health-care finance to his post at Vidant Beaufort Hospital.
He joined the local hospital staff after serving as chief financial officer for Baycare Health Systems in Tampa, Fla., and, most recently, interim chief financial officer and chief operations officer at Blue Ridge Medical Group in Morganton.
A native of Savannah, Ga., Winters earned both his bachelor’s and master’s of business administration degrees from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga.
He is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Healthcare Financial Management Association.