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Nurse now hospital CEO

During Joyce Brancato's nearly 20 years of duty at Seven Rivers, she has steadily ascended to the top job.

CRYSTAL RIVER - Joyce Brancato's day had come, and she wasn't about to let a pesky cold get in the way.

Mrs. Brancato had taken last Monday off to rest at home and kick the cold. When Tuesday morning arrived, she hustled down from her home in nearby Levy County and took the helm of Seven Rivers Regional Medical Center as its new chief executive officer.

"I'm deeply committed to this hospital," she said during an interview Friday, her words spoken in the deliberate pace that one would expect from a nurse at a patient's bedside rather than a newly minted CEO.

The job isn't new to her.

She has held a variety of management positions in a nearly 20-year tenure at Seven Rivers that began when she supervised her fellow nurses in the hospital's critical care unit. She has had brief flirtations with it when she held the "interim" CEO title three times.

Now, Mrs. Brancato, 45, has taken over for J. David McCormack, who will be moving to a hospital that Seven Rivers' parent company, Health Management Associates Inc. of Naples, is hoping to acquire just south of Tampa.

"Her longstanding dedication to this facility and the community it serves, combined with her proven skills, will guide the hospital as it continues to expand," Dr. Hari V. Iyer, chairman of the hospital governing board, said upon Brancato's promotion from chief operating officer last month.

"She has extensive clinical and leadership experience," he said.

As one would expect, Mrs. Brancato has a few ideas on how she intends to leave her mark on the 27-year-old, 128-bed hospital that sits on a tree-lined campus along U.S. 19 just north of Crystal River.

First, she said, the hospital must recruit more physicians, from general practitioners to specialists, to meet the needs of Citrus' growing population. She anticipates that the hospital will have to add a fourth floor to accommodate the growing needs in the next five years.

Second, the hospital will add services, including the purchase of new equipment to perform less-invasive breast biopsies and partnering with an Inverness medical practice to bring a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to Crystal River to be used for wound treatment.

Third, Mrs. Brancato said, the hospital will expand offerings of other minimally invasive surgeries, including procedures for back pain and varicose veins, and promote the hospital's orthopedic center and women's and family center.

She hopes to have many of the services up and running by the spring and added jokingly that the only hurdle is the number of hours in a day.

Mrs. Brancato, however, is no stranger to the numbers-heaving duty of running a hospital. She said that she will be able to run the hospital with its current services with federal and private insurance reimbursements.

"It's a challenging task to effectively run a hospital," she said.

In that endeavor, Mrs. Brancato hopes to draw from her experience in nursing and from her time in hospital management.

Mrs. Brancato was born in Dayton, Ohio, and moved with her family to Apollo Beach, near Tampa, when she was 12. The oldest of five children, Mrs. Brancato graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in nursing in 1981. She then married Philip Brancato.

She said she wanted to be a nurse because she has the "nurturing desire" that's common among those in her profession.

Mrs. Brancato worked at Brandon Community Hospital and Sun City Hospital for a few years, before the couple moved to rural Citrus County.

"We wanted to live in the country," she said.

For more than a year, starting in 1985, Mrs. Brancato worked 12-hour shifts from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., four days a week in the intensive care unit at a 90-bed facility that was at the time called Seven Rivers Community Hospital.

In 1987, Mrs. Brancato became the hospital's quality assurance coordinator. She jokes today that she took the job to get out of working the overnight shifts. In 1991, she became the hospital's assistant administrator, overseeing nine departments.

By then, Mrs. Brancato had received a master's degree in business administration from Nova University in Fort Lauderdale. In a 1993 interview with the St. Petersburg Times , Mrs. Brancato said that her rise at the hospital was due in part to former CEO Michael Heindel, who recommended her for promotions.

"You need to choose a mentor, no matter what gender, who can give you direction and support," she said at the time.

In May 2003, Mrs. Brancato ascended to CEO after serving as an interim CEO after Don McKenna relocated to another hospital in the state. But the stint lasted only until November, when Tenet Healthcare Corp. sold the hospital to Health Management Associates, the hospital's current owner, for $550-million.

"My only hope was to continue at this hospital," she said Friday, recalling the sale.

In the blink of an eye, the Seven Rivers Community Hospital in which Mrs. Brancato had grown up was suddenly Seven Rivers Regional Medical Center. Under the new management, Mrs. Brancato went back to her job as chief operating officer and McCormack, an HMA veteran, became CEO.

At the time, McCormack said of Mrs. Brancato: "Joyce is a very valuable person to our facility and we look forward to her being here for many years to come."

She lives in nearby Levy County on a 20-acre ranch with her husband, her 7-year-old daughter, Christina, and their five horses.

She maintains licenses as a registered nurse and a certified health care risk manager and is active in local organizations, from the Crystal River Women's Club to the Seven Rivers Medical and Educational Foundation.

She has given 20 years of her life to Seven Rivers and is now finally where she wants to be.

"I'm very pleased and honored to serve as CEO," she said.

--Raghuram Vadarevu can be reached at rvadarevu@sptimes.com or 564-3627.