A heart for health care – leading nursing and cardiac care for 39 years
Diona Brown Administrative Excellence
› What do you do for relaxation:
I love to world travel. I jokingly tell people I work to travel.
› If you could choose another profession, what would it be and why:
When I retire, my goal is that I want to be a travel agent. To me, a lot of the fun of travel is planning each trip.
After nearly four decades at CHI Memorial, Diona Brown has developed a reputation for problem solving and leadership. The team at Memorial’s Stroke and Neuroscience Center even uses an acronym for Brown’s prowess — HOWDI — or “How Would Diona Do It?” A Chattanooga native, Brown first started working at Memorial Hospital in 1984 as a phlebotomist while she was in nursing school at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
In 2020, she was tapped to direct the neuro service line when CHI Memorial opened its Stroke and Neuroscience Center. Under Brown’s leadership, the center has grown and improved patient outcomes. In 2021, Brown was named co-senior vice president of operations. She is currently the interim chief operating officer for the entire hospital.
Brown says she was drawn to nursing and health care as a child watching a distant relative adorn the traditional white nurse and cap of that era and going to work each day helping people in need.
“I just always wanted to be a nurse,” she says. “What kept me here and motivated me through the years has primarily been the growth opportunities that I have had.”
Brown earned a master’s degree from the University of St. Francis and completed the Wharton Nursing Leaders Fellowship Program through the University of Pennsylvania. She has been a volunteer for the American Heart Association, serving as a board member and chair of Chattanooga’s Go Red For Women campaign.
In helping to lead the 3,500 employees at CHI Memorial, Brown said she strives to be a servant leader who stays in contact with workers and helps empower them through open, honest communication.
“Cardiology, from when I started here in the 1980s to where it is today, has just exploded in technology and what we can do for patients and I’ve been fortunate to be able to grow with it.”