Callie Richmond for The Texas Tribune

Residents at a hospital in Austin, where a tax increase will support a medical school.

Despite its glowing reputation, Austin has faced a gap when compared with other major metropolitan areas: the lack of a medical school and the cutting-edge research it can provide.

But that gap appears to be closing after Travis County voters approved a five-cent property-tax increase this month to help finance a plan to overhaul the regions approach to health care, including the construction of a research-intensive medical school affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin.

This was the final puzzle piece that needed to be found and fit into the puzzle, said State Senator Kirk Watson, Democrat of Austin, who spearheaded the campaign for the ballot initiative.

The puzzle may be complete, but the hard work to create the medical school and an affiliated teaching hospital has just begun. Mr. Watson, however, praises the areas new playbook for the project, in part because of the broad coalition of organizations involved.

With affirmation from voters, those groups are finalizing the schools location, preparing to oversee its construction and developing the curriculum for the school, which could open as early as 2015, though William C. Powers Jr., president of U.T.-Austin. said 2016 was more realistic. (U.T.-Austin is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

We all have our own little to-do lists, said Patricia Young Brown, the president and chief executive officer of Central Health, created in 2004 by Travis County to provide a health care safety net for the regions underserved populations.

The new tax will generate $54 million annually to supplement Central Healths activities rather than pay for the bricks and mortar of new buildings. Of that total, $35 million will be set aside for medical school patient services, and the remainder will go toward other services.

That revenue is also expected to draw up to an additional $76 million in federal matching money through a program aimed at transforming medical service delivery for needy patients, for a combined $130 million impact on the regions health care system.

More here:

A University of Texas Medical School in Austin Nears Reality