May 6, 2015

Works starts on WSU Spokane clinic

Rendering courtesy of NAC|Architecture [enlarge]

The teaching clinic is expected to serve about 35,000 low-income patients a year.

Groundbreaking is at 9 a.m. today for the 42,000-square-foot University District Health Clinic at Washington State University's campus in Spokane.

The two-story building will be at 412 E. Spokane Falls Blvd., on the southeast edge of the campus. It is slated to open by summer 2016.

NAC|Architecture is the architect and Bouten Construction Co. is the contractor.

WSU said in a press release that the teaching clinic will allow medical residents to serve patients while health sciences students from the campus learn alongside them.

It will house family medicine and internal medicine clinics now located in the Fifth and Browne Medical Building near campus. A total of 48 medical residents will work in the new clinic, which is expected to serve about 35,000 low-income patients a year.

Eastern Washington University shares the health sciences campus with WSU. Eastern will have physical and occupational therapy, and social work students on the second floor of the new clinic. Medical residents, nurses, pharmacists and WSU students will work together on the first floor.

WSU's board of regents approved the sale of up to $16.25 million in general revenue bonds to help finance construction of the clinic.

WSU is a partner in the Spokane Teaching Health Consortium, which secured funds for six additional resident positions in Spokane that started in July 2014.

Last month Congress voted to extend the funding for at least two more years, so another six residents will start in July and an additional six in 2016. WSU said this is significant since traditional Medicare funding for residency positions has been capped for many years.

WSU said nearly 1,500 of the state's 1,600 residency slots are in western Washington, and 49 percent of Washington's physicians are practicing in the Seattle area, where 29 percent of the population lives.