Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley Health Science Institute
Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley Health Science Institute
Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley Health Science Institute
Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley Health Science Institute
Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley Health Science Institute

Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley Health Science Institute

Creating a “hands-on” interdisciplinary learning institute

Kansas City, Missouri

Kahler Slater has been working with the leadership of Metropolitan Community College (MCC)-Penn Valley since 2005 to develop a state-of-the-art Health Science Institute. This work has brought together stakeholders and thought leaders from MCC and local health care providers. This initiative began with a study to determine the feasibility of building a new 189,000 square foot Health Science Institute on the Penn Valley campus. This facility is a hands-on learning environment that houses all of the health sciences programs at MCC, including nursing skills labs, patient centered dental clinic, a health careers human patient simulation lab, health learning resource center, surgical technology suites, radiography labs, energized and non-energized EMT labs, physical therapy labs, occupational therapy labs, a student health clinic and offices and shared spaces to support the new facility.

The team was also asked to design a 12,000 square foot Human Patient Simulation Center. This center accommodates three METI simulation units. In addition to the simulated ER/ICU and patient room environments, a waiting area for the public, a simulation suite manager’s office, a user group observation/conference room and a control room for the METI unit consoles were provided to support the learning environment.

There is a strong emphasis on peer simulation labs that provide real world conditions and opportunities for problem-based learning. Six fully simulated hospital rooms with METI human patient simulators allow real-time feedback to nursing, radiology, physical and occupational therapy students, and others. Learning is enhanced through direct and remote observation and the resulting dialog between faculty and students.

Kahler Slater worked with local architect Gould Evans on this project.

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Project Details

  • Size: 189,000 SF
  • Construction Cost: $22,000,000
  • Total Project Cost: $30,000,000
  • Completion Date: November 2009
Academic Health Sciences Experiences