New CEO Brewer hits ground running at BWWMH

In a series of meetings with all the employees and volunteers of Bryan W. Whitfield Memorial Hospital, new CEO/Administrator Doug Brewer has been laying out his vision and expectations as he starts his duties.

The idea of letting all the hospital stakeholders know the current status of the facility and what his plans as its director is part of Brewer’s insistence on been open.

“Transparency is everything,” he told members of the BWWMH Auxiliary on Thursday. “If we don’t talk about (problems) we don’t get better.”

Brewer comes to Demopolis with 25 years of experience in healthcare. His most recent post was in Talladega. Both professional and personal matters led to his decision to relocate, he said.

He never expected to be in a small hospital, but after his experience in Talladega, “I would never go back to a large hospital by choice.”

A native of Choctaw, Okla., Brewer is the first in his family to get a college degree. He worked for the governor of Oklahoma and then a defense contractor before joining a firm developing rehab hospitals.

He told the Auxiliary members there are three things he will constantly talk about: clinical quality, patient safety and patient satisfaction.

In many respects the hospital is doing well in clinical quality. He said there have been no infections in three years, earning the hospital a Medicare Star Rating of 3 out of 4.

Patient satisfaction, however, he said, is at the bottom, which affects financial reimbursement. All hospital employees must understand that they are “taking care of people at the best and worst times of their lives,” he explained.

He urged the volunteers to let every patient who comes through the hospital know they have his best interests at heart. “People don’t care what you know until they know you care,” he said.

One of his practices is to visit with every patient admitted to the hospital or with the patient’s family. He hands out his business card to all of them and tells them to call him at any time if their needs aren’t being met. From the thousands of cards he has given out, Brewer has received only a handful of calls.

While people may never get rich working at BWWMH, “We’ll be really wealthy in experiences.”

He goes by the 100/0 rule, which he plans to implement at the hospital: 100 percent accountability and 0 percent excuses.

“Hospitals are very dangerous places,” he continued. “Processes will always break down,” no matter how good they are, so teamwork is a must among the caregivers and staff members of the hospital.

“We must have people who are engaged.”

In a previous hospital he set up the “Polished Stone Award” given to people who went above and beyond to make sure patients were taken care of. The award was named for the idea that “People are constantly rubbing against each other to be polished.”

Quoting Mother Teresa, Brewer said, “It’s not about doing great things in this life. It’s about doing small things with great love.”