Riordan Clinic plans affiliate clinics among other changes

After a three-year period of diminished involvement with the Riordan Clinic, CEO Brian Riordan is back.

“A lot of people are leaving traditional medicine and moving over to what we do,” Riordan says. “That kind of excited me to the possibilities.”

That’s leading to some changes at the clinic, which Riordan’s late father, Hugh, founded in 1975.

“In those 39 years, it’s been more or less the same type of operation,” Riordan says.

That’s meant one campus at 3100 N. Hillside.

“We feel it’s our obligation to our legacy to kind of step up our presence a bit – or quite a bit,” Riordan says.

He’ll do that through affiliate clinics, the first of which will open by Sept. 1 at 1010 E. 17th St. in Hays.

“That will be our first non-Wichita location,” Riordan says. “We can imagine a time when there’s more than 100.”

The immediate goal is four affiliates by next year and 20 within four years. Riordan Clinic, which once was known as the Center for the Improvement of Human Functioning International, has 40 employees. Riordan anticipates needing 80 by 2018.

The clinic is known for its high-dose vitamin C treatments. Riordan says those types of treatments have “immense potential” and are getting more notice in the media.

“We kind of arrived in terms of acceptance,” Riordan says. “Our way of thinking and our treatment modalities have gone from fringe to mainstream.”

The first step the clinic takes with patients, or “co-learners” as Riordan calls them, is to test their blood “to understand where they might be deficient or have too much of something, and we try to balance those things first.”

“We try to understand each person’s biochemical individuality.”

Riordan says the clinic is still learning about vitamin C treatments.

“We’re kind of tuning it for each different malady.”

For instance, he says cancer treatments work better with doses given every other day while treatments for bacteria and viruses work better every day.

Riordan says the clinic has three missions: research, education and co-learning, or the treatment of patients. He says the research and education will remain in Wichita.

“We’ll be growing that over time,” he says.

“Affiliates will be able to help us to be able to see more patients,” Riordan says. “We think it’s incumbent upon us to be able to offer that at a wider base.”

He says he plans to tackle another longtime mission of the clinic, and that’s to give people seeking treatment a place to stay.

“We’d like to start putting one or two up per year,” Riordan says of small living spaces.

He hopes to accommodate 20 temporary residents by 2018.

Riordan also is exploring the idea of vitamin C manufacturing on the clinic’s 92 acres, only about 15 of which are currently in use.

“Sometimes it’s very easy to get, sometimes it’s very difficult to get,” he says of vitamin C.

Riordan says the clinic may use some acreage to produce non-corn-related organic vitamin C.

Part of the clinic’s acreage is a nature preserve that will remain.

Part of it is farmed by a local farmer, and Riordan says the clinic is talking with the Land Institute in Salina for help with it.

Since Riordan’s April return, the clinic began offering nutritional supplements, which it calls nutrients. There are 18 branded products so far.

Other smaller changes are coming to the clinic as well. Its first solar panel will be installed in September for alternative energy.

“Our electric bill’s way, way higher than we’d like it to be,” Riordan says. He says he wants it cut in half by 2018.

Also, he’s working with Gallery XII to increase art on the campus.

“I’m trying to make our (campus) more beautiful and help with the healing process through art,” he says.

Riordan doesn’t see a full-service restaurant returning to the campus because he thinks it’s too remote to attract enough regular diners.

“Down the road, we would like to have the organic garden supply a juicing corner.”

Also, Riordan says there one day could be some light, grab-and-go type of food.

The Riordan Clinic is going through a lot of changes at once, but Riordan doesn’t think it’s too much.

“It’s very realistic.”

He says there’s “a talented staff and a supportive board” to make it happen.

“What we have to offer is synching all of a sudden with what society wants. I personally don’t think it’s too much. It’s what we have to provide.”

Third Panda to open

Panda Express is going to open a third Wichita-area restaurant, this time in Derby.

The fast casual concept will go in the Derby Marketplace at Meadowlark and Rock Road. Panda will be in 2,350 square feet on the opposite end of the building where Starbucks is.

There’s another 3,200 square feet left to lease in the building.

California-based Panda entered the Wichita market in 2010 with stores on Maize Road in front of Academy Sports & Outdoors and at One Kellogg Place on East Kellogg.

Leisa Lowry of J.P. Weigand & Sons represents the chain in the Wichita area.

Panda is similar to Chipotle in that diners walk through a line and first select a starch — steamed or fried rice or chow mein — and vegetables followed by two to three entrees.

Entrees consist of traditional Chinese dishes such as kung pao chicken, sweet-and-sour pork and beef and broccoli.

Look for more details on the Derby Panda as they become available.

You don’t say

“In our town of 10,000 people, we have the kind of lifestyle filmmakers try to re-create.”

– An excerpt of a winning essay, “Say Hello to Haysville,” that Susan Armstrong of Armstrong Chamberlin Strategic Marketing wrote for a Shelter Insurance contest

This story was originally published July 25, 2014 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Riordan Clinic plans affiliate clinics among other changes."