5 trends in health education campus design

Studies have shown that a diverse medical workforce leads to better health outcomes. “There’s a huge push right now to train health professionals who look like and talk like and culturally understand the patient population they’re going to serve,” says health education design leader Heidi Costello.

Colleges and universities hoping to meet the needs of communities where their graduates will practice medicine are putting diversity front and center. Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine took this challenge quite literally, in fact. Early in the design process for its new building, students on the college’s anti-racism curriculum committee advocated for a physical manifestation of equity and inclusion efforts.

“We met them, and they said they wanted a presence in the new building,” says architect and designer Jerry Johnson. “And they didn’t want to be tucked away in the back or on a top floor. They wanted to be up front; they wanted a space that was open and welcoming right away.”

With the support of the administration, Johnson, Costello, and their team delivered just that. “We located our Office of Inclusion in the atrium, one of the most prominent spaces in the new building,” says Ken Johnson, executive dean and chief medical affairs officer. “Our campus dean is collocated in that space now as well. It’s a visible commitment to the work.”

It’s difficult to plan for an unknowable future, so labs, learning spaces, and entire buildings should be designed with built-in flexibility whenever possible. This can manifest at a variety of scales, from relatively small innovations like removable walls in simulation rooms to large-scale strategies like acuity-adaptable floors in teaching hospitals. 

At Indiana University’s Indianapolis Academic Health Center, Medical Education and Research Facility, floors on the 8-story tower can be converted from office space to research labs. Although the tower was initially intended to be office space, the early design phases coincided with the pandemic, when it became apparent that the trend toward remote work could free up space in the tower for research.

“Our job is to envision the program that we would like to create and build the structure that supports it,” says Paul Wallach, executive associate dean for educational affairs and institutional improvement at Indiana University School of Medicine. “The challenge is always that when you’re designing a building to last decades, you have to envision what may come and build flexibly.”  

As students strive to learn as much as they can about healing others, they often neglect their own well-being over the course of their studies.

An Ohio University study has documented this decline. Researchers found that aspiring medical school students were exceptionally resilient, with less anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation than the general student population. But that changed after they entered medical school. “Medical students can actually be more depressed, anxious, and suicidal than the general population,” Ken Johnson says.

And of course, the pressure doesn’t let up after those students graduate and enter practice. “It’s difficult to face this, but 300 to 400 physicians commit suicide every year in the United States, which is about the size of an average medical school,” he says. “Our nation loses a medical school’s worth of physicians every year to suicide. I feel like it’s incumbent upon us to address this situation from the beginning. That’s why one of our major design goals was to create an experience that helps students build their resilience, so they can deal with the challenges they’ll face as a physician.”

As a result, the college’s newest building and recently revamped curriculum work in tandem to encourage students, faculty, and staff to enjoy access to healthy food, natural light, fitness and yoga rooms, and other health-based amenities. The building is on track to be the first WELL certified medical school in the U.S., and the curriculum incorporates wellness breaks throughout the day to encourage students to recharge in the ways that feel best to them.

From telemedicine training centers to simulation labs, modern health education buildings are preparing students for a wired future.  

The University of Minnesota Health Sciences Education Center replaced the traditional library model with a living laboratory for exploring emerging technologies to advance teaching, learning, research, and patient care. “It was about taking that idea of the library and peeling it apart and infusing the technology piece,” Costello says. “It’s a connector between colleges and schools in the Academic Health Center and a trusted partner in accessing and applying new information.” 

The resulting floorplans intersperse recording studios, makerspaces, and a virtual reality area among more traditional simulation rooms and classrooms. Tech-savvy librarians, now known as information managers, provide support from conveniently accessible locations.

Sometimes forward-looking design choices run contrary to conventional wisdom, which means creative thinking and risk-taking is key to success. At Southeast Community College in Lincoln, Nebraska, administrators opted to go against the grain when it came to their medical simulation spaces.

“I was constantly told that a simulation control room was absolutely essential, but I think they’re a thing of the past,” says Jill Sand, the college’s health sciences dean. “We can run our simulations from anywhere, even from home if we need to. Eliminating the control room uses space more effectively, and students can run simulations anytime, not only during scheduled classes. We want to follow best practices, but we also need to ask, ‘What’s next?’”

Interprofessional learning areas have long been on medical schools’ “nice to have” lists, particularly given accreditation requirements to provide opportunities for cross-disciplinary interaction. The pandemic has given this goal a new sense of urgency and importance.  

“Health professionals had to wear multiple hats over the past few years,” Costello says. “If you were a nurse, suddenly you had to become a respiratory therapist, too. Even pre-COVID we were seeing a shift toward co-locating multiple groups to foster collaborations and synergies, and the pandemic has only accelerated that change.” 

To support this need, Indiana University’s new Indianapolis Academic Health Center, Medical Education and Research Facility was designed around the concept of learning communities.

“We envision a basic scientist and a clinician working together to assist 60 to 70 students across all years,” Wallach says. “The goal is to help students who enter as extraordinarily bright laypeople make the transition into being physicians through smaller-scale programming and educational opportunities. We’re creating a small, intimate environment at the largest medical school in the country.” 

As a result, medical students might hang out at a ‘home base’ between classes, or they might all take a wellness class together, says designer Cara Prosser. “In this way, the design brings students together inside and outside the classroom, and that’s really special.”