ASU breaks ground for the future of healthcare

The ASU Health’s headquarters has laid the foundation for students to learn in a 175,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility. The building will feature five medical innovation suites, an artificial intelligence hub designed to support future physician-engineers, and a virtual skills lab where students can develop and test medical technologies alongside industry partners..

The project offers many different facets of the future of healthcare, and is expected to open in Fall 2028.

Elizabeth Baker, associate dean of medical education and Heather Clark, senior associate dean for engineering integration, both at ASU, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss how the medical school will fuse medicine and engineering.

“The idea of the health headquarters is that we’ll have several colleges,” Baker said, “…who will be helping to educate students that will hopefully improve the health of Arizonans and beyond.”

The five-story facility is going to be located on ASU’s downtown campus, and will include an innovation hub, a simulation lab, and other administrative offices.

“Our students will graduate in four years with both an MD, and an MS in medical engineering,” Clark discussed.

According to Clark, the MS and medical engineering includes two phases, with the first one being the classroom phase. Those trying to get an engineering degree will learn how to use AI, and how data is generated in order to reinforce medical education.

“…and in the second half,” Clark explained, “…this is where they really have fun…and they use team projects, and work with industry to really look at what the next frontier is in digital healthcare.”

The teams will be guided and mentored with a clinical team, a clinical mentor, an industry mentor, and an engineering mentor.

“…we’ll really be working with industry to identify what are the real problems,” Clark said, “…and then our students will be using their creativity to find solutions.”