KU Medical Center Requests $75 Million Towards New Building
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) is in the process of requesting $75 million from state officials towards a new seven-story building at its Kansas City campus. The structure would replace a parking lot at the northeast corner of Rainbow Boulevard and 39th Street and would feature up-to-date teaching facilities for doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
The project is a key part of the KUMC Health Education Initiative, which KU School of Medicine leaders (in partnership with state policymakers, national consultants and community stakeholders) proposed to achieve Governor Sam Brownback’s request to elevate the school.
The school’s current facilities were built to accommodate an outdated type of training in which medical students, nursing students and other health professionals learn separately. But today’s health care curriculum is more interdisciplinary, using advanced technology and simulation. It encourages small-group problem solving that compels medical students to work together as a team in situational roles, and it requires interactive televideo with advanced graphics and simulation with complex robotics.
The new building would create the space for computers, simulation labs and small discussion classrooms needed for modern medical education. Plus, it would allow KUMC to increase enrollment to an additional 25 students each year, which would mean more money for the state, according to the initiative. One Kansas family physician creates an annual economic impact of $878,624, and if 50 percent of KU-trained physicians practiced in the state, each graduating class would contribute $11 million to the state’s economy after completing residency requirements, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
As 2013 begins, Douglas A. Girord, M.D., the new executive vice chancellor of KUMC (who starts in February), said “getting through the upcoming legislative sessions with some success around the KU Health Education Initiative” is his second immediate priority in a statement.
To help build the new health education center, KUMC leaders are specifically asking the governor’s office for a commitment to match $40 million in private and other funds with $30 million from the state, beginning with $1 million of planning funds in this fiscal year. In addition to the $75 million request, the initiative also asks for $2.8 million for community-based medical efforts at its Wichita campus.
The school leaders will know by the end of January whether or not Governor Sam Brownback decides to include the initiative in his budget, which the Kansas state legislature will make a decision on later this spring.