HERMISTON — When Brian Sims, Good Shepherd Health Care System’s new CEO, was 10 years old, he spent a lot of nights in the hospital.

It wasn’t because he was sick, but because his single mother was a nurse at a small rural hospital in Arkansas, and she got permission to let him sleep there some nights.

As he watched the hospital staff work, from doctors to custodial staff, he wondered if he would have what it took to work in health care.

“I saw how all the folks came to work every single day and gave everything they had, and sometimes left their hearts right on the floor,” he said.

After he left Arkansas he joined the Air Force instead, but Sims said he eventually ended up directing the recruitment of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals for the Air Force, which lent itself to transitioning to hospital administration once he left the service.

In his most recent job as CEO of Lucas County Health Center in Chariton, Iowa, the hospital was recognized nationally as a “Top 20 Critical Access Hospital for Quality” by the National Rural Health Association. Sims said when he went to pick up the award, he met the recruiters that would end up convincing him to visit Good Shepherd and consider applying for position that longtime CEO Dennis Burke was leaving behind.

“I said, ‘You know, I could actually see myself here,’” he said of his visit.

Good Shepherd’s board named Sims as the health care system’s new president and chief executive officer in July, and he took over the role on Oct. 1. He said he has been greatly impressed with what he has seen in his first month, including a recent drive-thru flu shot clinic that resulted in more than 600 vaccinations in just a few hours.

A hospital is just a building, Sims said, and it’s the people who make it what it is. He said he feels good about the people Good Shepherd has in place, and said his philosophy mirrors that of one of his heroes, American Air Force General Curtis LeMay: If you take care of the people, the people will take care of the mission.

Sims said he’s still in the listening stages of getting to know the hospital system now, so he doesn’t have a list of big changes he’s planning to immediately come in and make.

“I’m sure over time some things are going to change, but it will be gradual,” he said, calling it an “evolution, not a revolution.”

When people visit a hospital or clinic it’s often because they’re worried or hurting, he said, and his goal is that the people they meet there will help them feel better beyond just the medication or other treatment that may be administered.

“It’s about how they feel when they leave,” he said. “Do they say, ‘That receptionist was fantastic, that doctor listened to me, that nurse was so gentle with my child’?”

Hospitals have had challenges far beyond the usual this year as COVID-19 has caused upheaval and financial blows. While hospitals are still facing challenges — including need exceeding capacity in some parts of the country — Sims said it is encouraging that providers are working with far better information now about how to treat COVID-19 and prevent its spread than in the early days of the pandemic.

“(In the spring) the science was still trying to catch up,” he said.

Sims encouraged people to follow experts’ advice on keeping safe, including masks, hand-washing and social distancing. Oregon’s COVID-19 numbers are far lower than Iowa’s where he came from, he said, but are still “not good.”

While he’s still settling in, Sims said so far he and his family are loving the community.

“There’s something special about Hermiston,” he said.