Change -- that's how representatives from the KU Medical Center describe its new Health Education Building.
You may have felt the growing pains of construction at 39th and Rainbow in KCK, but the new medical building will better prepare the doctors and healthcare professionals of tomorrow.
The building will provide interprofessional and interdisciplinary team learning for all three KU Medical Center schools - health professions, medicine and nursing.
KU first broke ground on the 170,000 square foot building in 2015.
It's a public private partnership totaling $82 million.
The state of Kansas put up $26 million, $21 million coming from the University of Kansas Medical Center and donors paying the rest. That includes a $25 million lead gift from the Hall Family Foundation.
The new facility includes simulation equipment and facilities that will significantly expand the Zamierowski Institute for Experiential Learning, funded with a lead gift from David and Marilyn Zamierowski of Overland Park, Kansas.
The ZIEL will have simulated experiences for patient care and in the operating room.
KU Medical Center believes simulation can place learners in situations that are high risk or have a low tolerance of error in a safe learning environment, since no real patients are involved.
"You have to learn how to approach it using different technologies. Whether looking as a just a person, but also the science that's there. Pathology looking at the slides, and also you have to work with your colleagues," said Jeff Colyer, M.D., Lt, Governor of Kansas.
The lieutenant governor calls the building one of the most modern healthcare teaching facilities in the country and says Kansans should be proud.
He said it should allow for more healthcare professionals and nurses to be trained, as well as 25 to 50 more doctors each year.
