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gathered to offer their best wishes for the Hasbroucks as they departed.

“It’s very heartbreaking for us and bittersweet. We have had a wonderful experience here for the last three years. This community has been so supportive,” Hasbrouck said in an interview with The Advance. He explained that the new opportunity that presented itself was unexpected. “We were not looking to relocate. The opportunity is two-fold; it gets us closer to our family. We have been on the road in different locations for 16 years now, so to be closer to our families was a priority for us. The hospital I will be working with in Salt Lake is where I served my internship. To go back full circle is special to me,” Hasbrouck said.

Hasbrouck grew up in Minnesota, and his wife, Breanna, is from Colorado. Hasbrouck’s uncle, a retired internal medicine physician, and his wife, live in Salt Lake City. St. Marks Hospital was the first hospital in the state of Utah, and is the longest running hospital west of the Mississippi. St Mark's is a general acute care facility with 317 licensed beds and is operated by MountainStar Healthcare, a division of HCA Healthcare.

Hasbrouck looks back as his tenure at Meadows as a learning experience in unprecedented circumstances. “My entire playbook was thrown out the window day one because within a couple of weeks we were in the midst of the Delta Variant for COVID. Our entire hospital was capacitated. Every licensed bed had a COVID patient in it; our eight-bed ICU had bolstered to 24 patients on ventilators.”

He admitted that any plans or preparations he had coming into his new role had to be put on the back burner. “In that time, my number one focus was to ensure that the (Meadows) team and the community had what they needed to sustain them through a pandemic. Part of this plan was communication, part was being visible, available and encouraging, and the third part was ensuring we had the appropriate resources to equip our team to take care of patients, and respond to their family members and the community at that difficult time.”

He added, “I think in that time we leaned on our parent company to assist with tools, equipment, people, resources to help us meet the need and the challenges. Previously, we averaged two to three patients on ventilator-assisted devices. At the peak (of COVID-19) we had 24 patients on ventilators. We don’t have 24 ventilators in this facility. We had to lean on both our division leaders and corporate leaders to get access (to this equipment) and we were able to do that within 24 hours. So, that was my first and foremost priority to manage through something that was historic.”

He observed, “Now I have dealt with HCA going on my 14th year, and the support we get is outstanding. We are a phone call away from what we need in a pandemic, or natural disaster, or anything else. I believe in that time this organization and this community saw the value in a partnership with a company that can provide those resources that many other hospitals in the state struggle to receive.”

Hasbrouck earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota and his Masters’ of Healthcare Administration at the University of North Carolina. After starting his career with HCA at St. Marks in Salt Lake, Hasbrouck moved to Dublin, Georgia, then Charleston, South Carolina, and then to Savannah. His next move was Vidalia, the smallest medical facility in which he had served. “We like to say Vidalia is the smallest, but the mightiest.”

During Hasbrouck’s tenure, Meadows has celebrated a number of achievements and accolades. Most recently, Meadows Hospital was recognized as a 2024 Outstanding Patient Experience Award recipient by Healthgrades, the leading resource consumers use to find a hospital or doctor. Meadows Hospital is one of only four hospitals in Georgia to earn this prestigious award and ranks in the top 15% of the nation’s medical facilities rated by Healthgrades for positive patient experience. It was the second year in a row that Meadows received the honor.

“What I am most proud of is that this hospital, which has been in the community for 60 plus years, has fallen on some difficult times in the past, but we have now built a foundation to sustain and grow for decades more. That foundation is built on teamwork, collaboration, forward-thinking, and pushing the limits and doing extraordinary things.”

He emphasized that Meadows is now looking further outside its walls into other counties, where it has established clinics for more accessible health care, “ensuring we are seen as a true regional facility that can not only meet immediate needs, but that can quarterback our patients’ care if services outside Meadows are needed.” Keeping care close to home but extending this care outside Meadows’ immediate walls, even outside its region, is made possible by HCA’s network of medical facilities.

In January, 2022, the first robotically-assisted surgery was performed at Meadows. Hasbrouck noted that Meadows’ Da-Vinci robot program is very unique for a rural-based facility, as are its programs for graduate medical education and nursing. “We are making an impact in people’s lives. Meadows wants to be a good partner with the community in ways that will set us apart.”

He emphasized that through what Meadows and the community have done together, more lives have been impacted than ever before. “In the last year alone, we touched the lives of 100,000 people throughout multiple counties. People know our name and they have heard positive things and choose to come here to allow us the privilege of caring for them.”

Hasbrouck said the future of health care in Toombs and surrounding counties served by Meadow is very bright. “The foundation has been set and is now in a position to scale,” he said of Meadows’ ability to grow. “In cardiology we will be expanding by adding an additional cardiac catheterization lab, and the emergency department will be adding additional beds and fast track space. Ultimately we are looking at ways to expand our inpatient beds, and are in active discussions with architectural firms.”

Meadows will continue its campaign to recruit future health care providers through its outreach into area educational facilities, its Youth Advisory Board and Volunteen program, Hasbrouck said, adding, “In addition, we are taking graduate medical education to the next level, through our partnerships with Memorial Health in Savannah and Mercer in Macon as we bring the first rural track internal medicine residency program here.” Residents in this program will be on site in September working with physicians at Meadows, as well as Vidalia physician Dr. Geoff Conner, in this threeyear program.

“We look to bring to two or three residents on each year, and could have six to nine residents rotating through that track. We are looking at other potential tracks in ob-gyn, surgery, internal medicine, and morel,” he said. The rural track is designed to get health care into communities that have no health care. “We believe in order to recruit rural health care providers, they either need to come from the community or have to have level of comfort and awareness and experience within a rural community,” he explained. Meadows also sponsors a fellowship program for family medicine with obgyn now in its third year and is now rotating ob-gyn residents. Meadows may also be rotating residents in general surgery by next year.

“We have come from a community hospital to a regional hospital and on to an academic facility,” Hasbrouck said.

In commenting on what he has accomplished in the community, Hasbrouck said, “I am not big on legacies. Truly what I always think about is that we try to leave a situation better than we found it. This hospital has a rich history and we have been a small part of it for last three years. My hope is it is in a better place foundationally to grow and prosper and align with the needs of this community.”

Hasbrouck’s wife, Breanna, will be leaving behind a successful business in Vidalia, Downtown Barre, where she and Maria Gibase taught dance and aerobics. The business will continue in DiBase’s capable hands. The Hasbrouck daughters, Addison, 9, and Brynlee, 7, will be saying goodbye to the friends they made while students at Vidalia Heritage Academy and elsewhere in the community.

Breanna looks back on her time in Toombs County with fondness and pride. The business she started with her friend Maria is doing well. The studio that blends exercise, ballet and pilates, has a “great, very consistent client base. I am very proud of the progress we made,” said the dancer and coach who has also taught group fitness. Breanna also became a part of the community as a volunteer for the Refuge, United Way, Kiwanis, the Onion Run Committee, Vidalia Heritage Academy, and many area nonprofits. “This is a strong community with tons and tons of resources. I will always value the relationships with people we have met here,” she said.

Hasbrouck added, “The collective good of people in Toombs County is remarkable. For us to experience that, we are forever grateful. I think Toombs County is a case study in when people come together, respect their differences, and collaborate, you can do anything.”

GREAT TEAM – Matt Hasbrouck, CEO at Memorial Health Meadows Hospital, is shown with Executive Assistant Rachel Crumpler during a farewell event for Hasbrouck at the hospital last week.Photo by Deborah Clark