By Dr. Jeff Bird—
MUNCIE, IN—IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital provides the primary healthcare service for most of the residents of Delaware County and acts as the tertiary care referral center for East Central Indiana. The clinical care is led by two dedicated clinical leaders: Dr. Ryan Johnston MD, the Chief Medical Officer, and Melissa Hicks, DNP, RN, the Chief Nursing Officer. Under their leadership, the quality and safety of patients hospitalized at IU Health Ball Memorial is vigorously monitored, and processes are in place to continually improve.
IU Health Ball was founded in 1929 by funds primarily given by the Ball family. It has been a dedicated center for medical, nursing, and other ancillary healthcare training since its inception. Ball Memorial has about 350 inpatient beds serving almost every medical condition that could arise. It employs over 2400 people, making it one of the largest employers in East Central Indiana. The medical staff consists of over 300 physicians and over 40 medical specialties. Annual admissions consist of around 18,000 inpatients, and 46,000+ emergency room visits, and over 300,000 outpatient procedures. IU Health Ball is a certified level 3 trauma center.
Dr. Ryan Johnston grew up in Indianapolis and attended North Central high school, then Indiana University. He studied pre-medicine and matriculated to the IU School of Medicine after graduation. He then pursued his residency in Internal Medicine at Northwestern University, then stayed in the Chicago suburbs in his initial internal medicine practice. He became interested in graduate medical education and was drawn to interview for a position at IU Health Ball to become an Associate Director of its internal medicine residency.
Johnston has held several important leadership positions at Ball, including the director of the hospitalists program. He has had a long interest in preventable medical errors and a systems approach to medical care, which has served him well since he assumed the responsibility of Chief Medical Officer in 2022. Dr. Johnston’s responsibilities include medical staff leadership, overseeing credentialing and onboarding of hospital based medical specialists and the quality and safety of the medical care provided to Ball’s inpatients.
Melissa Hicks, DNP, RN, serves as the Chief Nursing Officer and has been in that role since 2021. She grew up near Kokomo and attended Kokomo high school and then Indiana University Kokomo receiving her RN degree. She has held multiple positions within IU Health at Methodist Hospital, IU North, Saxony and prior to Ball she served as the CNO of IUH Tipton Hospital. She received her MS in Health Systems Leadership in 2014 and her Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) at the University of Indianapolis in 2019.
Hicks leads all things nursing at Ball including nursing care, research, nursing education including nursing students from several regional nursing schools, and nursing quality and recruiting. Melissa leads the effort to maintain IU Health Ball’s nursing Magnet designation, a national recognition for nursing excellence, only achieved by 10% of US hospitals.
IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital strives to be a healthcare entity providing safe and quality care by its doctors and nurses and support team.
With dedicated leaders like Drs Johnston and Hicks, it will surely succeed in providing excellence in care to East Central Indiana.
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