Coming Home

COMING HOME

Jeff Brannon returns to Geneva County as CEO of Wiregrass Medical Center

Jeff Brannon loves rural America, and he loves Geneva County. Born and raised in Hartford, he jumped at the opportunity to become the CEO of Wiregrass Medical Center in Geneva.

“I don’t want to sound like Bear Bryant, but mama called, so I came home,” he says.

Brannon, who has worked in the medical field for more than 30 years, became the CEO of Wiregrass Medical Center in July 2017. He is passionate about helping people, which is why he chose to work in the medical field. And he felt it was time for him to aid the people in his community.

“Jeff has done an outstanding job in his first year at Wiregrass Medical Center,” says Wiregrass Electric Cooperative Chief Operating Officer Brad Kimbro. “Geneva County is fortunate to have such a highquality hospital to serve the region, and it is even more fortunate to have a man like Jeff leading the way. He cares about the community and the people who live in it.”

Wiregrass Medical Center employs 325 people, including 11 physicians and 125 nurses. The health care campus features the main hospital, a senior care unit and a 96-bed nursing home.

While the hospital is a vital resource to Geneva County, rural hospitals do have their share of struggles. Brannon’s goal is to improve the quality of care in the community.

“We want to make sure we are representing the community in a positive light,” Brannon says. “We want people to believe in what we do and to know they’re going to be taken care of when they come here.”

A passion for helping

Brannon began his medical career as a nurse, but his passion for caring for people started much earlier.

“My brother was in health care on the business side, and he told me that he thought I should be a nurse because he had seen my care for people. He thought I was compassionate,” Brannon says. “Back in that time, there were not a lot of male nurses. I’ve been a nurse now for 33 years.”

That passion came from caring for his mother, who struggled with health issues most of her life and died at an early age.

He started his health care career at Flowers Hospital in Dothan as a patient care assistant, which allowed him to support the clinical staff while directly caring for patients.

He became a registered nurse after graduating from Wallace State Community College in 1985. After working at Flowers Hospital for four years as a nurse, he moved to an administrative role at the hospital. He then left Dothan to become the CEO of Medical Center Enterprise, where he stayed for 11 years.

“At that time, Enterprise was considered a rural market,” Brannon says. “It has grown past that now. I left Enterprise in 2013 and was fortunate to become the CEO at Monroe County Hospital in Monroeville, which is a small rural facility similar to Wiregrass Medical Center.”

His time in Monroeville turned out to be beneficial because the governing structure is similar to Wiregrass Medical Center. Both facilities are health care authorities with an almost identical board of trustee structure.

“My almost four years there allowed me to better understand the intricacies of how rural hospitals are governed,” Brannon says. “It was a great and valuable experience for which I am very grateful.”

He stayed in Monroeville for almost four years before returning to his roots in Geneva County.

“You can’t get more rural than Geneva County,” he says. “I was born rural. I was raised rural. And I’m going to die rural. It’s a good life, and I want young people to realize how great home is. I remember saying that I was going to leave and never come back. Thank God I never left because I have friends who tell me all the time that they are trying to get back home. Rural life is a good life.”

Challenges ahead

Many rural hospitals, however, have struggled in recent years. Geneva County has a lot of uninsured citizens with financial and health issues. That makes it tough to operate a hospital, but Brannon came in with a plan to help the hospital succeed.

“We believe the strategies we plan to implement will work in the long haul, but it’s going to take hard work every day,” he says. “Our goal is to be here to turn this place around into a positive light.”

He believes Medicaid expansion would help the hospital, which supports state and federal initiatives to make that happen. Medicaid is a federal-state program that helps pay for health care for the needy, aged, blind and disabled, as well as for low-income families with children. The state determines eligibility and which health services are covered. The federal government reimburses a percentage of the state’s expenditures.

“That would be a shot in the arm and help rural hospitals,” Brannon says. “It would help us right here in Geneva. We are serving the underinsured, and we are underfunded. That’s the biggest challenge we have.”

While some rural hospitals may struggle, Brannon believes they are still a vital resource to the community. Wiregrass Medical Center has a $40 million impact on the community financially. The hospital provides more than 300 jobs to the area, and the nursing home and senior care unit are a thriving business. People from all over southeast Alabama and northwest Florida take advantage of the service.

Without the hospital, many people wouldn’t have access to care since larger markets like Montgomery, Mobile, Birmingham and even Dothan are too far for people to travel.

“For me personally, I didn’t realize until I sat in this seat the large population we serve,” Brannon says. “If this hospital is not here, then people are going to have a hard time getting to a large market for health care. Trips to the doctor will get put off because people may have a transportation issue or they don’t know how to navigate to a bigger system.”

And the hospital has plenty to offer, including a state-of-the-art 3D mammography machine, which provides breast cancer screenings. Also, telemedicine allows patients contact with specialists from other hospitals and a quality nursing home.

Plus with nursing programs at Troy University, Wallace State, Lurleen B. Wallace and Enterprise State community colleges, the hospital has a great resource for quality medical professionals.

The recently opened Geneva County Regional Technical Center, better known as G-Tech, offers health science classes, which will be a great resource to develop hospital workers.

“People don’t need to travel to bigger markets because we can provide the quality health care they need right here in Geneva County,” Brannon says. “Providing quality primary care and making sure people utilize those services is what’s going to help us survive.”

Letting the community know all the hospital offers is another initiative for Brannon. Wiregrass Medical Center has several programs in place to reach out to the community. Last September, they offered a health fair that showcased what the hospital offers along with inviting vendors to set up booths and to educate people about things like diabetes, hospice care, home health care and health insurance.

Also, in October during breast cancer awareness month, they offered a program called Ladies Night during which women could come in and learn how to do self-examinations and about the importance of early detection of breast cancer.

“Our No. 1 goal is to make our county healthier,” Brannon says.

Jeff Brannon oversees 325 total employees, including registered nurses Brandon Skinner and Natalie Johnson.

Lisa Dezan is a registered nurse who works with telemedicine. Telemedicine allows Wiregrass Medical Center patients to communicate with specialists from other hospitals.

Brandon Skinner, a registered nurse, looks over a vitals machine in the medical-surgical unit at Wiregrass Medical Center.

A great partnership

On the second day Brannon was on the job, Donnie Chesteen, who was a state representative at the time and has recently been elected to the state senate, called to inform Brannon about a meeting at Wiregrass Electric Cooperative called Grow Dothan.

“He said, ‘This is a meeting you don’t need to miss,’” Brannon says.

The meetings take place every three months and allow leaders and businesses in the Wiregrass to discuss ways to move the Wiregrass forward. Two important initiatives that have come from the meetings were G-Tech and the broadband initiative.

Last spring, WEC and Troy Cable announced a partnership that would connect all of WEC’s offices and substations to a fiber optic network. Members living along that route would also receive fiber internet. The internet has become a vital resource, and rural Alabama was being left behind.

Brannon says improved internet would allow the hospital to offer even more telemedicine options, and the initiative shows the power of the Grow Dothan meetings.

“You have leaders of the region there. You are a stakeholder. You get to say things that need to be said. People ask you questions, and it helps move the region forward. I am so grateful that Wiregrass Electric has agreed to host those meetings,” Brannon says.

WEC and Wiregrass Medical Center have been great partners for many years. In 2017, WEC’s Operation Round Up Charitable Foundation donated $10,000 to purchase new beds for the nursing home, which is the driving financial force for the hospital.

“The leadership at Wiregrass Electric and the willingness to take the initiatives they have done should be commended,” Brannon says. “They have forward-thinking people who want to make a difference. The people at Wiregrass Electric are the same kind of people here at Wiregrass Medical Center. They want to make a difference in the community they live in, and they want to improve the area for generations beyond ours. The people at Wiregrass Electric and their board are making decisions that are making our area better.”