There have been significant developments in the healthcare delivery system over the past decade, particularly in the growth of outpatient surgery centres, specialty clinics, retail health clinics, and urgent care facilities. Healthcare is no longer limited to hospitals or primary care clinics. As a result, the role that physicians and other healthcare professionals play has also changed, encompassing patient care as well as convenience, flexibility, customer service, and collaboration.
How physicians and other healthcare providers are educated and trained, as well as the environments in which that education and training occurs, must advance as well. Through thought-leading design, medical schools have the unique opportunity to meet the needs of today’s medical students and more fully prepare them for their future healthcare careers.
The following are Windhoek Medical University’s five key design factors that can improve and influence medical education today for patient outcomes tomorrow in Namibia and SADC region.
The evolution of technology is growing at a rapid rate and generations are becoming reliant upon these changes. Personal technology like laptops, iPads, and smartphones have turned students into visual, proactive, hands-on learners and made paper textbooks and large lecture halls outdated and largely ineffective. Today’s students want and need to both understand the procedures they’ll be performing upon graduating and experience and perfect them in a very real and safe way. In addition, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and their use of “likes,” “retweets” and “shares,” have led today’s students to expect instant feedback.
With Milestone Solutions Simulation Technology, WMU students have the opportunity to practice on high-fidelity mannequins that provide immediate feedback on a student’s performance. Simulation technology also provides students the opportunity to role-play the full spectrum of patient care—from bedside manner to procedural acuity, to professional acumen in a collaborative environment.
In addition, WMU’s simulation is going to help to bridge the gap in the sheer numbers of healthcare providers needed for the changing demographics. On-site residency opportunities limit the capacity of health science programs to advance the careers of these students to accredited practitioners. Many healthcare facilities abroad are adding simulation spaces onsite to provide a powerful and effective way to encourage additional training of staff in lieu of sending them offsite for continuing education. By allowing for onsite, flexible simulation spaces, the facility boosts innovation, efficiency, and retention of quality diverse staff at WMU in Namibia.
The Windhoek Medical University with area space of 170-square foot medical education and clinical science building facility includes patient simulation rooms, a skills lab, a control room and a computer lab to personalize learning, engage students and create more purposeful real-world education, setting students up to retain what they’ve learned and apply it in practice.
It has been proven that the most effective healthcare outcomes are the result of collaborative care – care that is holistic, cross-disciplinary, and benefits from a patient’s complete care team working together for a common purpose. Innovative classroom teaching styles are emerging through interdisciplinary approaches through co-teaching by professors from different departments allowing for a holistic approach to learning. At Windhoek Medical University, with more medical education specialisation fields such as internal medicine, dental, pharmacy, surgery, rehabilitation, psychology, sports medicine, nursing and basic sciences, student are taught in multidiscipline classrooms, use one common multifaceted computer library and practice on same mannequin as patients.
At today’s WMU most innovative medical learning environments are not just teaching collaboration but teaching through collaboration by co-locating interdisciplinary departments to create learning environments—chemistry students and professors working side-by-side those in nursing, dentistry or language pathology, for example. These learning environments—which architecturally might exist in interdisciplinary lounges, hallways or libraries—blur the lines between departments in an effort to spark new ways of thinking, new ways of problem solving, and new ways of delivering superior patient care. Fostering this teamwork in an academic setting encourages deeper collaboration in the professional environment as reflective practitioners after graduation.
Windhoek Medical University, School of Medicine & Health Sciences on second floor 170,000 sf building designed in collaboration with international universities is anticipated to open in June of 2022. The building is organized around large learning communities that anchor each end of the building but on campus and off-campus. These learning communities focus on interdisciplinary collaboration among all the programs and create space for socializing, dining, private meetings, and flexible group work providing a remarkable opportunity for shared ideas to transpire.
Just as today’s medical and health sciences students have different educational needs than their predecessors, so, too, will the students of the future. After all, healthcare continues to evolve, healthcare delivery systems continue to evolve, technology continues to evolve, and, students continue to evolve. This ongoing evolution requires flexibility and adaptability in the design and delivery of the education and training of healthcare professionals. Diverse individuals need to find opportunities in and outside of the classroom to be alone, engage with faculty, and collaborate with colleagues.
The flipped classroom is just one example of flexibility in education. In the flipped classroom, students actively study and learn the material independently and then come together in the classroom to complete assignments collaboratively with fellow students while the professor becomes a mentor. Flipped classrooms result in more active, personalized teacher/student interactions and give students the kind of engaging learning experience that leads to greater retention and, ultimately, improved real-world application.
Windhoek Medical University, Khomas Grove Mall’s Clinical Sciences Building is expected to open in June, 2022. The 170,000-square foot multi-functional facility will offer multiple clinical services departments (internal medicine, dental, surgery, ophthalmology, hearing, prosthetic/orthotics, rehabilitation services, pharmacy, physiotherapy, nursing) and puts an emphasis on developing flexible classrooms that can transform from class to class, adapting to ever-changing teaching models and the desire to accommodate multiple majors in one building
All human beings have the desire to feel connected to something beyond themselves, to not be alone, and to feel that they are part of a community. Successful medical education spaces create a sense of community by connecting students through transparency to their learning, their fellow students, their educators, patients, and the healthcare facilities, including amenities such as stationery, foods, clothes and daily needs in and around them. This transparency provokes curiosity for continuous learning, encourages interaction, engages the community, and stimulates conversations.
Connectedness can come via classrooms, labs and other services that are on display for the campus to see, an approach used at the 60,000-square foot North Hennepin Community College in USA, or via partner programs with neighbouring universities. Windhoek Medical University, Khomas Grove Mall’s Clinical Sciences Building provides hands-on interaction with patients from the surrounding community (Khomasdal, Otjomuise, Packfoot, Katutura, Windhoek North and West and Dorado Pack as well as Dorado Valley). By connecting students with patients in greater way at Funky Town, Windhoek Medical University is helping its students experience for themselves the important role they play in advancing the health and wellbeing of a community.
Medical education facilities are responsible for teaching future healthcare professionals to improve the health and wellbeing of their future patients. But often we find that those same facilities do little to nothing to improve the health and wellbeing of the students themselves.
Wellness is multifaceted – be it physical, emotional, social, or beyond. Medical education facilities that incorporate daylighting, natural ventilation, staircases, sports facilities, sustainable building materials, and green spaces see a boost in student morale and motivation, physical activity, and accelerated learning. Additionally, students who feel their own health and well-being are been taken into consideration are more likely to consider environmental factors that impact human disease and consequently are more likely to drive conversations about sustainable health with their own patients.
The 170,000-sf Bio-Sciences and Health Career Center at WMU was designed and developed with such purposes. The facility meets Namibian MOHSS B3 Standards, meaning it fulfills sustainable goals for site, water, energy, indoor environment, materials, and waste. Beyond that, the building’s¬¬ organization focuses on bringing natural daylight through the building footprint into the learning environments, helping emotional stimulation, positively impacting energy use, and educating students on the benefits of sustainable design.
With the ongoing changes in healthcare and healthcare delivery systems, medical education facilities have both a responsibility and an opportunity to ensure their students are poised to positively impact their patients, their workplaces, and their communities. These five design drivers represent WMU in a handful of ways with those facilities which can do just that by better meeting the needs of today’s students and, as a result, tomorrow’s patients.
