An artist's rendering of the under-construction Health Innovation Center at Northern Kentucky University.(Photo: Provided)

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS - In a development that could shift the medical and education landscape in Greater Cincinnati, St. Elizabeth Healthcare and the University of Kentucky announced Monday they will open a regional medical school in 2019 at Northern Kentucky University.

The affiliation is the latest UK effort to set up a network of regional medical schools that would focus on training in primary care to turn out graduates who could ease the commonwealths chronic shortage of physicians.

The four-year medical education programwill work in collaboration with the Health Innovation Center at NKU, but outgoing NKU President Geoff Mearns said the new campus won't be housed in the center.

NKU is identifying an existing location on campus that will be renovated and hopefully ready to open by summer or fall 2019, Mearns said. He anticipates the cost of the renovations will be absorbed by UK.

"There is a well-documented need to expand existing programs and create new programs to educate the next generation of healthcare professionals," Mearns said.Research shows healthcare professionals tend to stay in the regions where they train, so this partnership will help build the workforce in our region.

In size and scope, the new medical program would be dwarfed in the region by the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, with about 400 tenure-track faculty members and nearly 700 students. But the UK program will educate MDs who could go to work at St. Elizabeth hospitals in Northern Kentucky.

The new medical schoolwill provide opportunities for qualified NKU faculty to teach some first and second-year classes. There will also be a number of preferred admissions slots held for NKU undergraduate students who want to attend medical school and meet the academic requirements.

Were at capacity when it comes to educating medical students (in Lexington), UK President Eli Capilouto said. We need regional partners if we are going to tackle this stubborn problem.

The UK College of Medicine currently enrolls 547 students andplans to add about 30 students each year at NKU, according to the school's dean, Dr. Robert DiPaola.

DiPaola said about a third to halfof the students in the college are from Kentucky and up to 60 percent who do additional training come back to Kentucky.

Usingfacilities at NKU is an efficient and cost-effective way to expand the program while maintaining the quality of the curriculum, UK officials said. The campus will use the exact same curriculum and assessments as UK's Lexington campus, which will includeprimary care and subspecialties. On-site faculty will have UK College of Medicine appointments, teaching in small groups and providing simulation and standardized patient experiences with digital lectures from Lexington.

The expansionwill be part of a network UK hopes in 2018 to open at Bowling Green and expand at Morehead.Already partnering withUKfor the regional programs are Morehead State University, Western Kentucky University, St. Claire Regional Medical Center, King's Daughters Medical Center and the Medical Center at Bowling Green.

Students will pay the same annual tuition at the Highland Heights campusthat they would in Lexington, which is $37,716 for Kentucky residents and $65,861 for out of state students.

Garren Colvin, president and CEO of St. Elizabeth Healthcare, said the new program will ensurelocal students with medical school aspirations can do so in Northern Kentucky. The affiliation will allow students to have clinical experiences at St. Elizabeths healthcare help address health care concerns and changes in the industry.

We hope to educate and retain our local talent to help shape them into the medical leaders of our future, Colvin said. Together we will be able to bring students from across the commonwealth and the nation to our region to continue to strengthen the healthcare landscape in education, training, teaching and practicing.

Colvin said he hopes a majority, if not all, the graduates from this program to join its workforce to provide healthcare to patients in the area. He said the graduates coming out of the Health Innovation Center at NKU and UKs medical school would mean more jobs and better health for Northern Kentucky.

NKU is now building the $97 million Health Innovation Center on campus, with at least $8 million from St. Elizabeth. The facility is scheduled to open in 2018. NKUand St. Elizabeth officials have said the facility will one day turn out dozens more nurses, respiratory therapists, wellness experts, public health specialists and other health-care providers.

Its another aggressive UK move into Northern Kentucky, a field on which local players are on the march as well.

In spring 2015, the Christ Hospital Health Network, which has a large doctors office in Fort Wright, affiliated with UKs health system for advanced cancer care. The Markey Cancer Center in Lexington has the distinction of a National Cancer Institute designation, which means additional research funding for faculty and access to more clinical trials for patients.

The University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute, though larger than the Markey, does not yet have NCI designation, despite nearly two decades of efforts to get that recognition and the extra money to fight cancer. But in the past two years, UC officials and local titans of business such as John F. Barrett, chief executive officer of Western & Southern Financial Group, have made public commitments to get the NCI notice but obtaining it is still years away, at best.

To add to the drama, Christ Hospital and St. Elizabeth Healthcare have flung lawyers at each other over a parcel of land in Fort Mitchell where Christ Hospital wants to build an outpatient surgery center. An administrative law judge now is considering Christs argument that St. Elizabeth needs the competition and St. Elizabeths counter that Christ Hospital is coming to cherry-pick wealthier, insured patients, without which St. Elizabeth is crippled in its mission as the caregiver for all in Northern Kentucky.

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St. E, UK to open regional medical school at NKU - Cincinnati.com