CLEVELAND — News 5 is following up one year after the Cleveland Clinic launched its Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research Center.
"It has been quite a year," said Cleveland Clinic Chief of Staff Dr. Beri Ridgeway.
Watch more about the center's opening below:
RELATED: Cleveland Clinic launches Women's Comprehensive Health and Research Center
Ridgeway called the first year of the Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research Center a success on Thursday, at the Clinic's first Women’s Health Forum.
She highlighted more than 18,000 appointments and over 10,000 new patients served by the center, which is designed to better meet the health needs of women as they age.
She said she knew from personal experience in clinical practice that there was a need for women to be seen, heard, and supported, and saw a gap in medical knowledge for women of all stages of life.
The goal of the center is to change that.
"I think we’re at the forefront of a revolution," said Maria Shriver about the work and momentum they're seeing at the center.
Shriver, the founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement at the Cleveland Clinic and the center's Chief Visionary and Strategic Advisor, spoke to the sold-out crowd on Thursday.
"A center that acknowledges how our health changes and can go through our life with us and can talk to us about what we’re dealing with at 40, at 50, at 60, at 70,” said the journalist, author, and advocate.
As the hundreds of women took their first break between sessions at the forum on Thursday, some of the talk that could be heard among them included words like "Inspiring," "Hopeful," and "About time!"
“I've already got a whole page of notes from Miss. Maria,” Taylor Sowell said.
She attended the forum with the team of women of all ages she works with at a behavioral health organization in Medina County.
"I am hoping to gain more insight into things that, as a 20-something, I might not know all about," Sowell said. "And I want to know more about the journey of the women who walked before me and how that can relate to my story and how I can use that information to help the people that I touch every day.”
Cindy Persky, who has a nursing background, was at the forum with a group of her girlfriends.
"We're all reaching either menopause or post-menopause, and we all kind of feel like we weren’t told the whole story," said Persky. "We've just been trying to grasp at straws to have somebody hear us!"
She said she now feels heard and excited about the research that’s happening here and wants other women to know about the center.
"Women are different than men and we need to be researched too," she said.
Shriver said this past year, they’ve proved that the demand is there for the services provided at the Women's Comprehensive Health and Research Center.
"We filled that beyond anyone's expectations," she said.
Shriver said she has a big vision for the center's future.
"My hope is that we have a building," said Shriver. "My hope is that this Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research center, along with the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, is at every location that the Cleveland Clinic is. That it's global, and that it's national in every respect, and that women who can't get answers for their health can come here and get the care that they deserve."
Shriver also emphasized the importance of women advocating for themselves if they don’t feel heard by their healthcare provider, as well as the importance of women serving as advocates for women's health research.
