CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Austin Peay State University is working to fill a major health care void in Tennessee with its new state-of-the-art Health Professions Building.

Campus leaders officially celebrated the opening this week. The vision for the project started with a study conducted back in 2010.

“One of the real purposes of the building is to have an interdisciplinary space, where as a patient you actually have a whole team of people that are working to make sure that you're getting the best care possible,” the APSU College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Dean Karen Meisch said.

Health science deans believe the new building will not only address the area’s nursing shortage but also fill the needs in other areas such as speech pathology in rural school districts.

“Currently, we're reporting about a six month time on average that an ad sits until they find a qualified placement in those jobs," the APSU College of Behavioral and Health Sciences Dean Dlynn Williams said. "So, speech language pathology has really high demand, as well as medical laboratory science, as well as nursing. So our nurses, if they so desire to stay in the state of Tennessee, they would have 100% placement rate as well in this region."

The building is just over 114,000 square feet and costs around $105 million. The facility sees real patients in areas like speech pathology and psychology and also conducts lab work for the campus’ student health center.

APSU's Health Professions Building will help train students looking to stay in town — including two hospitals recently announced for the area — and beyond.

“Of course, in Clarksville, you may have heard that we have a couple of hospitals that may be moving to the region as well," Meisch said. "We're going to need to staff all of those. This population is growing, and so we're going to need more health professionals to actually take care of the community."

The Tennessee Higher Education Commission also gave APSU grant funding to help fill needs in rural communities. The school has used that money to partner with Maury Regional to help provide health care education and services to rural areas.

“Those pathways are to make sure that students as young as high school can explore these medical careers, from medical laboratory science to nursing to all those that we've been talking about, and they have a clear pathway from there to employment,” Williams said.

The building will host classes that teach roughly 20,000 students each semester.

News Source : https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/clarksville/apsu-health-professions-building-works-to-fill-gap-in-tennessee-health-care/