MU Health learning center begins construction
MU Health Care began construction on a new education-focused hospital on Campus. This site is expected to open in 2017, following a Springfield location in 2016.
This new $42.5 million center is the result of planning from MU, the MU School of Medicine, CoxHealth and Mercy health systems. CoxHealth and Mercy are both based in Springfield. The new facility will be a way to train more physicians in Missouri, where MU identifies a lack of adequate health care in most counties. Once the Columbia site opens in 2017, 32 more medical students will be admitted to MU each year.
In a press release, MU system president Tim Wolfe said the project will provide more than 300 physicians, add more than $390 million annually to the state’s economy and create 3,500 new jobs.
Steve Edwards, president and CEO of CoxHealth, says the new center will increase students’ probability of staying in Missouri to practice medicine.
“As we see firsthand with our family medicine residency program, medical students tend to practice where they grew up or where they attended school,” Edwards said. “By giving students more options for clinical training in other hospitals and physician practices, we are educating them on the diverse health needs of our state and increasing the odds of putting more physicians in Springfield and southwest Missouri.”
The center is the result of the visions of MU, CoxHealth and Mercy to train more physicians in Missouri.
“The vision for the building is to create a learning space that reflects our goal of educating physicians to provide effective patient-centered care for the people of Missouri and beyond,” said Linda Headrick, senior associate dean at the MU School of Medicine. “That is why the building is called the ‘Patient-Centered Care Learning Center.’ This new learning environment will explicitly focus the students’ attention on the people they are preparing to serve.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of the article stated that the Springfield facility began construction last week. It was the MU Columbia facility. The photo below was also identified as Springfield, but it is Columbia. We apologize for the error.
Image provided by MU Health Care.
