On Tuesday morning, Northern Kentucky University President James Votruba and a dozen business and community leaders will travel to Frankfort to make the case to fund a Health Innovations Center at NKU.
The group will make their presentation to the Commonwealth’s Capital Projects Advisory Board.
The Board, co-chaired by Sen. Jack Westwood, invites university presidents and other state agency representatives to present their priority capital needs prior to each even-year General Assembly session, when the state’s biennial budget is approved.
“NKU is one of the two fastest growing universities in the state, with a 28 percent growth in students over the last decade and a 36 percent increase in applications for this fall,” Votruba said.
“While our region demands that the university educate more healthcare professionals to serve the needs of the community, we are experiencing our greatest space challenge. We will be forced to turn away students this year at a time when we need to prepare more talented professionals to pull us out of this recession.”
According to Dr. Denise Robinson, dean of the NKU College of Health Professions, the university is being forced to turn away 400 students each year who want to major in nursing or other allied health fields because of a lack of classroom and laboratory space.
“Our community needs us to graduate more students in these fields,” Robinson said. “The healthcare sector represents one of the largest growth areas in our economy, and the sheer number of aging baby boomers will require a significant increase in the skilled nursing and health workforce.”
Regional healthcare providers agree. “NKU is a critical partner for the region’s healthcare providers,” said Chris Goddard, president of HealthPoint. “I am continually impressed with the quality of NKU’s graduates and their passion for working with under-served populations. We will be able to do so much more and serve so many new people as a result of the work they will do in the Health Innovations Center.”
John Dubis, COO of St. Elizabeth added, “I truly believe that improvement in the health information systems as led by health informatics at NKU will be an important key step in health quality and safety through integration in our community and nation wide. The fact that NKU is educating so many nurses and allied health professionals who will have taken coursework in health informatics gives our community a competitive advantage.”The university plans to merge two projects into one, combining construction of the Health Innovations Center with renovation of the university’s Old Science Center. The move will save approximately $20 million, renovate critical classroom space and create new space for the College of Health Professions and the Department of Psychology.
“The healthcare profession and affiliated industries will help lead this country out of recession and into the foreseeable future as innovation and efficiency in this area help reduce costs and increase effectiveness,” said Fred Macke, chairman of the Campbell County Economic Progress Authority. “Kentucky has the opportunity to be on the leading edge of this movement, but only if we are prepared. The Health Innovation Center will increase NKU’s capacity to educate greatly needed health care professionals in cutting edge laboratories and simulators. The Health Innovation Center has been a community priority for years, and should be at the top of the list to be funded when the state rebounds from this recession.”
For the second consecutive time, the community has identified the Health Innovations Center as a top community priority through the Northern Kentucky Consensus process, facilitated by the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. “This is not only an important education project, but a critical health and workforce project that should be a priority for state university funding,” said Charlie Pangburn, chair of the Consensus Committee.
