By Ryan Palencer
AVON — The past five years have gone quickly for Lisa Sparks and Linda Ryser.
They were two of the first employees to start working at Clarian West Medical Center here and were both on hand for the facility’s five-year anniversary in December of 2009.
Sparks is vice president of clinical excellence, and Ryser is manager of service excellence.
“I think there is just a lot to be said about being the first group in the building,” Sparks said. “You really get a chance to know the building and the staff who work here.”
Sparks recalls getting the opportunity to spend about six weeks in the building before the medical center became operational. After working at the downtown Clarian location, she was quickly able to notice some differences.
“Downtown, we were all kind of spread out across the Methodist campus,” she said. “This was kind of the first opportunity when we all worked in the same area.”
Prior to her work at Clarian West, Ryser was a county commissioner. Being part of the community, she was able to get the pulse of the area.
“I think it has been wonderful how the community has embraced us,” Ryser said. “When we first came here, we were watching it slowly and then it kind of exploded. We saw that there really was a need for another health care facility on the west side of Indianapolis. It has been fun, but it was just ... we blinked our eyes and we were really busy.”
Ryser said she thinks the community embraced Clarian West because they soon learned that they could get the same care here that they had been receiving in Indianapolis.
“This is my first job in health care,” Ryser said. “My husband worked downtown at Methodist. I would listen to him talking about it and I knew that I would probably not re-run for commissioner, so I was looking for a career opportunity.”
Though there have been many highlights over the past five years, Sparks pinpointed the hospital’s opening as one of the more memorable.
“Just the move-in day was memorable,” she said. “It was like moving into a new house. Not all of the bathrooms worked, there wasn’t water that we could drink, and there was no food. Obviously, the first day that we had patients was memorable.”
Since opening, both women say they’ve been able to see the community rally around the facility.
“I think that the biggest change is the volume of patients,” Ryser said. “When we didn’t have that many patients, you could just walk through the building. Things were just very quiet. Now there are times when every single bed in the hospital is full. We’ve had a lot of our work recognized, like the J.D. Power designation. Those are great successes that I think have been a product of five years of hard work.”
With the increase in patients, expansion has begun and the future appears to be bright for Clarian West.
Sparks added, “Two of the main areas that we have seen growth in are our maternity area and emergency department. We just finished big construction projects for those areas. I think really watching and learning what the community needs is an important part of the work that we all do.”
For more information about the medical center and other Clarian locations, visit the website at www.clarian.org.
ryan.palencer@flyergroup.com
