Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s Teresa Fisher has traded in her title of chief nursing officer for executive leader over Montana Children’s, according to a press release from the hospital sent late Tuesday.

Along with her former role of overseeing all of the hospital’s nursing staff, she was also the administrator for Montana Children’s and comes into her new executive position with intimate knowledge of the center, hospital officials say.

The role switch comes less than a week after a group of nurses with Kalispell Regional Healthcare delivered a letter to hospital officials announcing the filing of a petition for union recognition with the National Labor Relations Board. However, Chief Executive Officer Craig Lambrecht said Fisher’s shift from overseeing nurses to her new role is in no way connected to the unionization efforts.

Director of the hospital’s emergency department, Ryan Pitts, has assumed the interim role of chief nursing officer.

“I am so humbled to be asked to fill this role knowing how important and integral nursing is to our patients and families,” Pitts said in a prepared statement. “To be able to work hand in hand with the nursing teams to raise the professional nursing practice to higher levels at KRH is amazing.”

Fisher steps into her new position less than two months before Montana Children’s opens the doors to its brand new facility. Hospital officials say the new center has made Kalispell Regional the leading hospital for children’s care in all of Montana.

“I have always been passionate about Montana Children’s and our women’s services, so this is an opportunity to focus on those areas and still work with nurses and patients. We have a lot to get done with the opening of Montana Children’s and I am excited to put my full energy toward leading the first dedicated children’s facility in the area,” Fisher wrote in a prepared statement.

Reporter Kianna Gardner can be reached at 758-4439 or kgardner@dailyinterlake.com