Brittney Garloch steps in as new CNO at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital

The Ascension St. Vincent Hospital has been an integral part of Washington County for many decades, albeit under a couple different names. First built in 1950, the Washington County Memorial Hospital operated under said name until 2010 when it was acquired by Ascension St. Vincent. Now, the hospital has a brand new Administrator/Chief Nursing Officer (CNO): Brittney Garloch.

Garloch has had an extensive 20 year career as a nurse at the Washington County / St. Vincent Hospital, making her an ideal choice for the position. I had the pleasure of sitting down with her to discuss her background and her approach to her new title, as well as the responsibilities it carries.

“I have been here at the hospital as a nurse for 20 years,” said Garloch. “My grandma was a nurse here many, many years ago, and then my mom was a nurse here. I can remember sometimes coming over after school and waiting for my mom or my grandma to get off work. I actually started right out of high school in 1998. I did some part-time work in X-ray as a tech, and I was also a pharmacy tech long before they made pharmacy techs have a license. So, that's kind of where I got my foot in the door here in the building.”

Garloch went on to describe the interesting characteristics involved with a rural hospital.

“Rural healthcare is unique because some of our services are limited,” she said. “I feel like what makes rural healthcare special is that it is more of a family atmosphere. All the departments know each other, and we know your families. Working within your own community, when you have those patients come in, you get that same type of care. I just think rural healthcare is special in the fact that it just feels so much more like a family.”

Since stepping into this position, Garloch has been thinking about her priorities and how she wants the hospital to function. She intends to focus on developing a good culture within the hospital, and that means ensuring the patients and staff are happy.

“My top priorities include just overall changing the culture in the building,” Garloch said. “I truly believe that if you have happy people working for you, you have happy patients. I want to really dive into patient safety and giving good quality care. I was a surgery manager for 15 years, and I always told my staff there that I wanted them to treat our surgery patients like they were our family. I want you to treat that person as if they were your mom or your dad or your child laying in the bed. I want you to give them the kind of care that you would want your child to get. I want that throughout the building.”

“I want the community to want to come here for care because there are some really great people here that care a lot,” she added. “I think some people think that because we're small and we're rural, we can't do certain things. So, I want them to know the type of things that we can do. For instance, I think there are a lot of people that don't realize that we're one of the only facilities in the area that offer pediatric physical therapy and occupational therapy.”

She continued by saying that she would love to see the hospital grow and flourish. She hopes to introduce services that the hospital has never offered as well as reintroducing some services that were once available, but no longer are.

When asked what she is most proud of about her career and new position, she did not hesitate to mention the staff at St. Vincent as well as the people she serves in the community.

“I am so proud of our role here and the people that we serve,” Garloch said. “I'm just thankful to be a part of such a great organization. The people in the building, they're the ones that make the building. They make it what it is, and I'm just super proud to be here and to be able to represent them and serve alongside them. We have a really great team here. I just want people to know that we are here for them, and we want to give them great care.”