Ryan Sharrow says he is a clinician at heart.
As the associate vice president of therapy care and research at CenterWell Home Health in Duluth, Minnesota, Sharrow’s career in home health has spanned almost two decades across the therapy industry. Although he hasn’t worked one-on-one with patients in about five years, his love and respect for the work clinicians and therapists do has only grown over time.
As the AVP of therapy care and research, Sharrow oversees CenterWell’s largest specialty program, Safe Strides, which focuses on fall risk management. Sharrow said CenterWell has 4,500 therapists working on physical, occupational and speech therapy, and part of Sharrow’s job is to support all of them on everything from compliance, clinical quality and documentation to employee engagement.
“I like to solve problems, and I get the opportunity to solve a lot of problems,” Sharrow said. “I’m a clinician at heart, even though some of the things I end up doing from an administrative perspective end up not being as clinical as you might think … Any time I get to support clinicians and the patients they take care of, that is the best part of my day, and it’s the majority of what I get to do every day, so I’m pretty lucky to have the role that I have.”
In fact, when he landed the role he told his wife: “I just got my dream job.” Sharrow’s focus in graduate school was vestibular rehabilitation, but because Duluth is a smaller metro area, he said he wasn’t able to see the majority of patients he wanted to. He worked in both hospital and outpatient settings. Then Sharrow heard about Safe Strides, which made his transition into home health an obvious choice. Since then, Safe Strides has remained a common theme throughout his career.
“Safe Strides incorporates vestibular rehabilitation into a more holistic geriatric balance management program, and I thought that made so much sense since it pulled me over,” he said.
In his current role, Sharrow advocates for fall risk management and works to raise awareness that fall risks are preventable. According to his nominator, under his direction, CenterWell has integrated holistic fall prevention assessments that address underlying contributors such as vision, vestibular and musculoskeletal factors. The team works proactively to identify risks and intervene before falls happen.
“Rather than accepting falls as an inevitable part of aging, he has made it his mission to break that cycle,” wrote Kyle Lavergne, vice president of clinical programs for CenterWell, wrote in his nomination. “Through his leadership, he has advanced evidence-based, patient-centered approaches that combine clinical precision with compassion, ensuring that seniors not only regain strength and balance but also rebuild confidence in their daily lives.”
But Sharrow insists there really isn’t a singular “hero” when it comes to supporting people at home—to him, teamwork deserves the real spotlight.
“The idea of a hero is that it’s this singular person out there doing something on their own, and I don’t think that describes what I do or what we do with our company,” he said. “I think it’s so critical to recognize that we function within a team, the structure of the industry is based around a team.”
“Everything we do is as a team and with the support of the people who have come in front of us and the people who work together with us to get these positive outcomes for our patients,” he added.