By Les Gura

Wake Forest Baptist

HealthWire

Chad Brown, MBA, MHA, FACHE, joined Wake Forest Baptist Health – Davie Medical Center a year ago as its first president, after serving as chief executive officer of Duke LifePoint-Person Memorial Hospital in Roxboro.

Brown oversaw the first full year at the Bermuda Run campus and continuing operations at the hospital in Mocksville. He took time recently to answer questions about accomplishments during his first year and the growth still to come.

What attracted you to Davie Medical Center, having worked at another community hospital with an academic medical center connection?

Coming to Davie Medical Center was an opportunity to see a facility grow from the ground up, to be able to grow services in this community. It’s exciting. There is a great relationship here between the community hospital and our academic medical center partner of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. We’re truly integrated. It’s much like a family.

What has surprised you about your first year leading Davie Medical Center?

The service-oriented attitude toward patients and families, it’s so much more than lip service. It’s how engaged our employees, physicians and volunteers are in wanting to do the right thing, go that extra mile for patients and families, and feedback from our patients has validated that. That’s been our model when we recruit employees, even physicians, in terms of training.   People come to the hospital expecting quality care. We certainly provide that, and we have great outcomes. It’s the service aspect where we’re really trying to differentiate ourselves.

How can Davie Medical Center serve as a driver of growth in Davie County?

When new industries come in, they look at the quality of life in the community for their employee base. They’re looking at the school system, the health care system. We’re a big part of that, a big part of telling Davie County’s story and recruiting businesses to this area. Members of our board of directors also serve in leadership capacities within the county and have been so supportive of our growth.

Give an example of how Davie Medical Center has collaborated with community partners in the past year.

We’ve worked with the county on repurposing our Mocksville campus. When Davidson County Community College was developing a new surgical technology and central sterile processing program, their leaders recognized the need for clinical teaching space. We have a facility that has an operating room and clinical space that we no longer occupy. We worked with them to provide that space. That program will produce quality students who hopefully will stay in Davie County, and be employed by our hospital. It’s a natural synergy.

How have you and your family settled in to the community?

I’ve gotten very involved in United Way’s Davie County chapter and I’m on the board of the Mocksville YMCA. Both are great organizations. My wife and three children have acclimated unbelievably well and have jumped right in to community life. The community has been so accepting and supportive during our first year. It is wonderful to be a part of the Davie community.