Construction is slated to begin later this month on a new $95 million health education building in Kearney that will allow more aspiring health care professionals to study and train in central Nebraska.
Officials with the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the University of Nebraska at Kearney held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for the UNK-UNMC Rural Health Education Building, which will be situated on the UNK campus.
The new facility will allow UNMC and UNK to expand on an existing partnership established in 2015 to train students in nursing and allied health professions by adding new programs in medicine, pharmacy and public health. The expansion is intended to address a critical need for additional health care professionals in rural Nebraska by allowing area students to study and train close to where they want to practice.
“Our goal is to harness UNMC’s world-class skills to transform rural Nebraska through a unique endeavor not seen elsewhere in the United States: educating health care workers and professionals in rural areas,” UNK Chancellor Doug Kristensen said in a statement.
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“The Rural Health Education Building will be a game-changer in this respect, serving a crucial role in filling shortages in all medical professions across Nebraska. This partnership will have a significant lasting impact on the region, possibly unlike any Kearney has seen.”
Dr. Jeffrey Gold, UNMC’s chancellor, said the project will create many new opportunities for students who want to both pursue and practice their health careers in rural Nebraska.
“By enabling the expansion of UNMC health science education programs at the UNK campus, it also marks a critical step toward increasing access to rural care and helping all our Nebraska communities thrive,” he said in a statement.
Nicole Carritt, UNMC’s assistant vice chancellor for health workforce education relations, said approximately 86% of the students who have trained at the Kearney campus in nursing and allied health professions through the existing partnership have stayed in rural areas to practice.
“We’re leveraging that success and now expanding it to include the other professions,” she said.
Currently, a student who wants to become a doctor can obtain their undergraduate degrees in Kearney or Chadron but then must complete their medical training in Omaha. Now they will be able to do that clinical training at local hospitals and clinics.
“This keeps them one step closer to those rural communities,” she said.
The new facility also will bring students in various professions — not to mention campuses — together to train, as they will practice in the real world, she said.
“This will be the largest interprofessional rural health training facility in the country,” Carritt said.
The three-story, 110,000-square-foot building, which will be operated by UNMC, will be equipped with some of the same state-of-the-art medical simulation, visualization and communication equipment available at UNMC’s iEXCEL (Interprofessional Experiential Center for Enduring Learning) program in Omaha.
Completion is targeted for late 2025 and occupancy in early 2026. Students will be able to enroll in the newly expanded programs beginning in fall 2025, using existing UNK facilities until the new building opens.
The partner institutions opened the $19 million Health Science Education Complex on UNK’s west campus in 2015, which quickly filled. More than 300 students currently are pursuing degrees there in nursing and a variety of allied health professions. The new facility will be situated directly north of the health science complex, creating a hub for health education and allowing the number of health care students in Kearney to double to more than 600.
A public-private partnership, the project received support from numerous sources. The Nebraska Legislature approved legislation, signed by former Gov. Pete Ricketts, allocating $60 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding for construction and iEXCEL technology startup costs, plus operational funds to support faculty and staff.
Most of the $35 million in philanthropic and local public funding has been raised. The City of Kearney committed $5 million, and $1.5 million will come from Central Community College.
The William and Ruth Scott Family Foundation is the lead donor to the project.
“Public health is one of our foundation’s highest priorities for the support we provide rural Nebraska,” John Scott, vice president of the William and Ruth Scott Family Foundation, said in a statement. “We are pleased to be a part of this transformational collaborative effort.”
Other benefactors include the Walter Scott Family Foundation, Peter Kiewit Foundation, Union Pacific Foundation, Pinnacle Bancorp and the Dinsdale Family, and, from Kearney, the Ron & Carol Cope Foundation, Tom and Mary Henning and Paul and Linda Younes.