Executive director looks back on 10 years at Sanford Heart Hospital

Feb. 21, 2022

This paid piece is sponsored by Sanford Health.

An exciting path led Bridget O’Brien-Johnson to leadership. The wife and mother of three has been with the Sanford Heart Hospital since its beginning. Now, the hospital is celebrating 10 years of bringing compassionate heart and vascular care to the Midwest – with O’Brien-Johnson as executive director.

“My parents were the ones who influenced me to want to work in health care – and at Sanford Health. My father was a surgeon at Sanford Health for 35 years, and my mom was a Sanford Health nurse,” O’Brien-Johnson said.

“I saw my mom raise six girls, and even though her passion was her children, she didn’t want to give up being a nurse. Her decision to be both a mom and nurse motivated me to do the same.”

After completing nursing school at Creighton University in Omaha, the Sioux Falls native came home to begin her career as a cardiology unit nurse at Sanford Health.

“The whole time I was a nurse I worked in some area of cardiology,” she explained. “But I immediately felt a passion for taking care of those who take care of patients. That is when I decided to move into a leadership role, and after seven years of nursing, I became a director.”

Right as O’Brien-Johnson became the director of the cardiology unit, Sanford Health was beginning to discuss building a state-of-the-art heart hospital in Sioux Falls.

“I was involved in the creation of the Sanford Heart Hospital since the very beginning, from early planning to the announcement and all the way to when we opened the doors 10 years ago,” she said.

Attached directly to the Sanford USD Medical Center, the Sanford Heart Hospital ensures patients in and around South Dakota have access to all heart services under one roof. A team of more than 750 experienced heart experts deliver care in cardiology, electrophysiology, cardiovascular surgery, interventional cardiology, nuclear medicine, thoracic surgery, vascular care, rehabilitation and other specialties.

“The physicians who I have the opportunity to work with are incredibly motivated to learn and provide our community with the latest and greatest,” O’Brien-Johnson explained. “It seems like every year or so we’re celebrating a new technology, and it’s so exciting.”

A year and a half ago, she was promoted to executive director of heart and vascular, a position that allows her to utilize her strengths and spearhead the care experience for both her team and patients.

“My proudest moments over the last decade are always when my team reaches milestones – when we performed the first cardiac PET stress test or when the team celebrated reaching 500 TAVR procedures,” she said. “I am extremely proud anytime a team member is promoted, accepted to graduate school or achieves a lifelong goal.”

Though 10 years have passed, this is only the beginning for the Sanford Heart team.

“My vision is to continue bringing innovative care models and talented physicians and staff to our community. Hopefully, we can keep the program growing and advancing into new areas of heart care that we aren’t offering our patients yet.”

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Executive director looks back on 10 years at Sanford Heart Hospital

She has been involved with Sanford Heart Hospital from day one – we look back on the past decade with a woman now helping lead the hospital into the future.

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