Riverside Shore Memorial Hospitalis pleased to announce that Deborah “Deb” Brown, MBA, BSN has joined the team as Nurse Executive, responsible for managing the state-of-the-art facility’s nursing staff and further enhancing the patient experience.
A seasoned health care industry professional, Brown comes to Riverside from Sentara Healthcare where she held key nursing leadership positions over the course of her 17 year tenure. Most recently, she served as Director of Acute Care Nursing at Sentara Leigh Hospital in NoRiverside Foundationolk after managing Intensive Care and Step Down unit nursing operations at Sentara’s Bayside and Princess Anne hospitals for nearly nine years.
Brown also served as Patient Care Supervisor at Bayside, strengthening her keen appreciation for patient-focused approaches.
As Nurse Executive at Riverside Shore Memorial, Brown feels the most important part of her job is to support the hospital’s team of nurses and the administration. “Ultimately,” Brown said, “it’s about ensuring we provide the highest quality care to the community, because that’s why we’re here.”
Brown has been a registered nurse for nearly 30 years and a member of the Virginia Organization of Nurse Executives and Leaders for close to a decade. She said that she was very impressed with the new Riverside Shore Memorial campus and staff, pointing to an extremely bright future for the organization and the local area it supports.
“You have the whole package here at Riverside Shore,” Brown explained. “– a beautiful facility with state-of-the-art equipment and an incredibly warm and friendly staff.”
For Brown, the Riverside Care Difference is “all about the people – the people that you hire as well as the community you serve.” She said she is committed to taking care of her staff and nurses and making sure they have what they need to succeed. “When they succeed, our patients succeed,” said Brown.
Reflecting on her early discussions with hospital staff, Brown was also impressed with how deeply the Riverside Care Difference is embedded into the system’s patient-first philosophy. “Hospital executives explained to me that team members at every level are focused on what the patient needs, regardless of what it takes to deliver that care,” Brown said. “At Riverside, patient care is driven by the organization’s mission to serve the community, not the bottom line – not every health system thinks quite that way.”
John Peterman, Vice President and Administrator for Riverside on the Eastern Shore said, “Deb brings years of relevant experience and great enthusiasm to this position. She will be focused on the patient experience and I look forward to working with her.”
A native of Charleston, South Carolina, Brown lived all around the country – and a few places outside of it – before landing in Virginia 17 years ago. She and her husband, who is on active duty in the U.S. Navy, call Virginia their home base now, as the youngest of their five children recently graduated high school. In her spare time, Brown enjoys gardening, fishing and traveling with her family and two dogs.
At Riverside Shore Memorial, Brown joins a facility that was recently recognized among the top 100 rural and community hospitals in the United States, one of only two Virginia hospitals named to the list for 2017.Riverside Shore Cancer Center also recently earned the 2016 Outstanding Achievement Award by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer.