Officially a month into her position as the Clark Regional Medical Center chief executive officer, Aphreikah DuHaney-West said she is adjusting well to her new life in Clark County.

DuHaney-West, who is Jamaica-born and San Diego raised, comes to CRMC from Teche Regional Medical Center, another LifePoint Health facility in Morgan City, Louisiana, where she served as CEO.

She replaced Barbara Kinder, CRMC’s chief clinical officer, who served as interim CEO. Kinder returned to her role as CCO.

DuHaney-West started in health care as a nursing assistant 30 years ago in a nursing home, and then went on to become an LPN and RN working in med-SURG, behavioral health, critical care, emergency department, quality and case management.

DuHaney-West earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in nursing science and a master’s in business administration.

A veteran LifePoint leader, DuHaney-West has served in several leadership roles within the organization. She also served as CEO of Mercy Regional Medical Center and Acadian Medical Center, former LifePoint facilities in Ville Platte and Eunice, Louisiana, respectively.

Before that, she served as a chief nursing officer for Havasu Regional Medical Center in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and Logan Regional Medical Center in Logan, West Virginia.

Before joining LifePoint, she served in various clinical and operational leadership roles at Gila River Health Care Corporation in Sacaton, Arizona, and Paradise Valley Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.

She is the recipient of numerous honors, including US Public Health Service Chief Nursing Officer Award, 2010, Appointed to LifePoint’s Chief Nursing Officer Council, Delegate to Cuba, American Organization of Nurse Executives, 2011, AHA Innovation Improvement Award, 2016, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nurses, Who’s Who in Healthcare 2008 and 2020 and several civic organizations recognition for outstanding partnership and collaboration. Most recently, Becker’s 2018 List named Duhaney-West to “Female Hospital & Health System Leaders You Need to Know.”

Duhaney-West said she also enjoys traveling, cooking with her daughters, sometimes pretending they’re on a cooking show and actively creating memories with her family. Duhaney-West has five children and three grandchildren with one more due in September.

Duhaney West said she also loves to read, and she mentors about seven nursing professionals who are interested in moving up into in executive roles. She’s also a purple belt in Brazilian  jiu-jitsu and was an ambassador to Cuba.

Duhaney-West sat down with The Sun last week to talk about her plans to ensure CRMC does its part in making Clark County healthier.

Winchester Sun:What first drew you to a career in health care?

Aprhiekah Duhaney-West: I started on nursing as a candy striper in health care in the hospital. My sister was a nurse, and she was late one day taken us to the mall. I was 16, and I was upset because everyone else was there. We wanted to go to see the movies, of course, not the boys, just the movies. I was an hour late, and I was going to be mad.

My sister proceeded to tell me she was getting ready to get off her shift as a candy striper. I was like I could never be a nurse, I could never work in the hospital because it was so technical and all the terminology and all the equipment was scary for me.

My sister proceeded to tell me when she was at the end of her shift, a patient that had cancer, stage five cancer, her husband of 40 years left, and she called my sister and said, “You know what, I’m ready to go.”

But [her husband] couldn’t handle it. He wouldn’t do well with it. So my sister proceeded to hold this patient’s hand until the patient passed. And I was blessed at 16, to realize that it wasn’t about the equipment, the terminology … it was about that presence that you could have with a family member when a husband of 40 years couldn’t be there …

I get choked up every time I tell this … I’m 48 this year, and this happened when I was 16. But it was that time when I realized that patients, when they’re anxious, when they’re fearful, you can make a difference in their lives in treating them with dignity and respect, not as a diagnosis, but as a person.

You could be that connection for them when they’re in that space. That is truly a privilege to take care of someone when they’re sick. That’s when I fell in love with health care and nursing.

WS: What led you to hospital administration?

ADW: I worked as a nursing assistant, CNA, and I was like a big shot when I got my certification as a nursing assistant. I got in trouble all the time because all I did was do the lady’s hair because they didn’t have a family to care for them. I was in a nursing home in California. And so I did that. Then I took the long way to become an LPN and an RN.

I didn’t want to go into a leadership position because I told them those people, they don’t understand they stay in their offices. And a wise nurse told me, she ran circles around this, and she was about in her 60s. She told me, I was either part of the problem or part of the solution. And right now, I’m part of the problem because all I’m doing is talking and that’s not effective. So that’s when I took my first supervisor position. And from that, that led to a director. As a director, I was working in a hospital, and the CNO, the chief nursing officer, was leaving. She asked me to step into the chief nursing officer role. I said I don’t want to do it. She then went to all the directors and had them again, call me and persuade me …

I said I’ll do it for 90 days. I remember I had the calendar on my wall, and I was marking the 90 days because I love patient care. As a director, I still took care of patients because I wanted to know what my staff was going through. I couldn’t do that unless I took care of patients, to know their hurdles and their challenges.

I wanted to stay at the bedside. Then it was 100 days later; I went to the board and said, “Hey, I want to go back to my department.” They said, “Well, we haven’t found anyone that we think can replace you.” And I’m like, “you’re not looking hard enough.”

I ended up staying in that role as the chief nursing officer for several years, for about five years at that organization. That’s when I fell in love with community health and found my niche working in a smaller community, smaller hospitals.

I’ve worked in a prominent academic hospital teaching hospital. And then I’ve worked for a Native American reservation. I call it from the cradle to the grave kind of mentality because we had the school health program, we had public health, we have family planning … we had dental, optometry, inpatient unit. It was everything right there.

You were so close to the community, and we had mobile medical units … You could impact change. You can make a difference outside the four walls of your organization by working with people and cultures and different ethnicities and being that beacon of light in that community.

I found my niche in working in small rural, hospitals and health care systems.

From there I went, and CEOs would tell me you’d like operations, you should think about being a CEO, but I didn’t feel like I could do it, or I was ready to do it. I still wanted to be a chief nursing officer to be close to patients … I thought, as I move up, it would remove me from my passion, my love, which is the people in the care.

I had a heart-to-heart with my husband, and he said, “This is your passion. You always tell me nursing is the first thing to get cut; education is the first thing to get cut. Being a CEO, you can impact a broader change than you can in this position.”

But it took me about 10 years to make that decision because of raising our children, and I didn’t want to be too far removed from my first love, being a mother.

So about 10 years later, more like 11, I took a COO position and then from there to CEO. So that’s my long journey.

WS: You’re coming from Louisiana, what made you want to apply here?

ADW: Louisiana was divesting those hospitals … I should have started looking for my next position six months earlier. But I couldn’t because the hospital was in turmoil. They were selling. There were political issues. There were fighting. There were lawsuits.

I couldn’t even focus on my journey. I had to focus on the employees and getting a new operator of the hospital. So I wasn’t thinking about my next career.

I know it sounds crazy, but I could not focus on my next move. It was about January when I said OK, this is where I smooth out this part. Where am I going next?

I looked at that time. There were only three different places that I could go that was open. Then this hospital, I think there was a position open for two months or something, and it disappeared. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what happened?” So I thought Clark was off the table.

The other opportunities were in Washington, and, I think, Alabama. I didn’t want to go to Alabama.

Then I got into a conversation with LifePoint’s Cherie Sibley [who previously served as COO of the company’s former Central Group of facilities, but now serves as Central Division president] was looking for someone to come to Clark, that she felt had vision, passion that would fit in the culture of the community.

I didn’t think it was possible because I’ve known the story of Clark being in the same company for a long time. I’ve known the growth. I’ve known the quality outcomes. I’ve known the people that’s been here.

So to have this opportunity to come here, it’s like, pinch me. Kentucky horses, love it. Beautiful.

So I can’t say I planned to be here. I believe the good Lord put me where I need to be.

WS: CRMC has a lot of partners in the community. How do you plan to grow those partnerships?

ADW: I think to say what I’m going to do in the future will be hard because each entity, we have a different relationship with them. The first step that I’ve taken is I have gone out to those entities, and they didn’t come here and meet with me, I’ve gone out to them, and saw their space and understand where the gaps are.

Communication is the first part of it. Being humble and realizing we need each other is the second piece …

Let’s have a conversation, and let’s look into it.

WS: Are there any specific gaps in services at CRMC that you would like to close?

ADW: We would like to see a cath lab and [Radiation Oncology] here in the facility. I think those are major ones from our transfers that we see around the community … and telling our story. Just get our story out of all the things that we do have …

Many of our patients are like, “I didn’t know you had oncology.” We’ve had that for several years. So we want to make sure we’re telling our story.

WS: What are some ways you plan to continue to ensure patient safety as well as continue to hold employees to the highest standards at CRMC?

ADW: What differentiates us is one, quality is led from the top, from the CEO. Accountability is there.

Our staff is certified professionals in safety, which I am as well … We have 12 staff on the leadership team with CPPS certification (Certified Professionals in Patient Safety), only 2,000

nationwide have certification.

We have the first person in LifePoint to serve on the board for infection prevention … We have an affiliation with the [Markey Cancer Center] as well as (Gill Heart Association) …

We’re not only holding our staff accountable, but we’re also keeping our providers accountable at the same level. You don’t see that in organizations, usually there are two levels of accountability for the front line staff and providers. Here we have that same level of accountability.

I think that’s what helps us continue, attain, and maintain and sustain our safety and our quality programs here … It’s a culture … It’s just what we do.