Integris Health Edmond, baby celebrate first year

Ryson was the first baby born at Edmond's newest hospital, located on 44 acres on the northeast corner of 15th Street and Interstate 35.

The 24-pound boy has been walking since he was 9 months old and can say 14 words, his mother says.

Rayna Wilson, of Guthrie, said she had no idea her baby was the first when she arrived at the hospital that opened the day before he was born. She said she wasn't prepared for all the attention her son's birth has received.

Tom Howard, the first patient in the emergency room 2½ hours after it opened, had suffered a stroke. He was the only patient to spend the night the first day the 40-bed hospital was open for business.

“I had a lot of attention from the nurses,” Howard said. “The food was really good.”

Howard said he is now walking and driving again.

More than 10,000 patients visited the emergency room during its first year of operation. Avilla Williams, president of Integris Health Edmond, said fewer than 3 percent had to be transferred for higher care.

The goal is to have available the doctors, nurses and equipment at the 200,000-square-foot hospital needed to keep the patients in Edmond, she said.

Ryson is one of 300 babies born at the hospital in the first year.

Until fall 2011, the last baby born in an Edmond hospital setting was in 2005, before the Renaissance Women's Center closed.