Student interacts with projections on a wall.

Innovative Spaces

Story by Dottie Barnes / Photos, unless indicated, by Valerie Hendrickson

Collaborative Practice Lab (pictured above)

This lab features interactive immersive technology in four of the eight breakout rooms. Three walls can be programmed to take 360-degree images and sounds from almost any environment — for example, hospital settings, the scene of an accident or home health environments.

Physical Assessment Lab

This lab contains 18 patient care assessment stations. It is outfitted with a ceiling camera, portable camera and recording system that allow faculty to demonstrate fine motor skill techniques, such as suturing. The demonstrations are displayed at each bedside monitor and can also be broadcast live worldwide. The recording system was intended for direct communication and demonstrations at GVSU satellite campus locations.

Students work in a lab on the anatomy table

Anatomy Lab

This lab contains a variety of real human body specimens that have been preserved using a plastination process. The lab also contains an Anatomage Table, which is the most technologically advanced 3D electronic anatomy visualization system for anatomy and physiology education. The table allows for exploration and learning of real MRI and CT images that are dissectible in 3D.

Operating Room Simulation (above)

The OR is equipped with an OR boom, surgical table and surgical instruments. It’s designed for students to learn sterile technique, gowning and gloving, and procedural setups for surgery.

Interprofessional Education Simulation Training Lab

This training lab contains three patient care bays, a ceiling-mounted patient transfer system and a gait-assist system. The lab is designed to be flexible and interprofessional, allowing the room to be set up in various configurations to meet a wide variety of learning objectives. In this lab, intensive care unit simulation is conducted. Students learn how to work with postsurgical patients and operate a variety of patient transfer equipment.

Standardized Patient Exam Rooms

There are 24 standardized patient exam rooms. Each room contains interprofessional outpatient examination tables designed to meet the specific practice needs of the different academic professions on the Health Campus. They each have state-of-the-art cameras and a recording system that allow faculty to watch live or recorded student standardized patient encounters and make annotations in the videos. Students also have access to their recorded videos for self-assessment.

Model Living Suite

In this apartment-like space, students learn how to teach patients who have suffered a life-altering injury or medical condition to use adaptive equipment in daily living.

Two people work at a stainless steel table in a culinary lab

photo by Kendra Stanley-Mills

Clinical Dietetics and Culinary Lab

This lab is used by students in the clinical dietetics program, applied food and nutrition program, and the hospitality and tourism management program. Clinical dietetics students are trained in preventive care nutrition and on how to teach patients about healthy food options tailored to their medical condition. Applied food and nutrition students examine the principles behind modern culinary techniques, with emphasis on preparation, nutrient quality and health. HTM students learn about food preparation, health and safety standards and OSHA requirements.

Three people stand on the outdoor patio overlooking medical mile

Sustainable and stylish: A look into the construction of DCIH

by Anna Young

With a green roof, locally sourced building materials and smart controls throughout the building, the Daniel and Pamella DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health (DCIH) was built with sustainability in mind.

Upon its completion in May, DCIH became the 26th building at Grand Valley to receive a LEED certification.

For Karen Ingle, associate vice president for Facilities Planning, the construction of DCIH was about much more than just getting the certification.

“This building demonstrates GVSU’s continued commitment to sustainability and healthy building design for the benefit of our students, faculty, staff, visitors, community and the environment for years,” said Ingle.

From the ground floor all the way to the roof, sustainable design can be found throughout the 166,000-square-foot facility.

Many building materials were manufactured within a 500-mile radius, reducing the need for transportation and shipping, and all wood-based materials were sourced from sustainable forests.

The roof of DCIH is made of highly reflective material to minimize heat absorption, and a portion of the roof is a green space, which helps retain and treat rainfall.

Even the placement of the building within the downtown Grand Rapids area lends itself to more sustainable practices, with easy access to bus routes and bike parking for visitors.

Ingle shared her favorite feature in the building: the integration of the lighting and HVAC controls, explaining how the heating and cooling in each room is activated with the flick of a light switch.

“When you leave the room, the lights automatically turn off after 10 minutes,” said Ingle. “Since the building is occupied from early in the morning to late in the evening, this results in significant energy savings.”

The sustainable practices built into DCIH are a perfect example of form and function, Ingle said, with decisions around materials and design being made with one thing in mind: The people who will use the building for generations to come.

Abstract image of a man and a screen with code

Moving ACI to Health Campus Opens Opportunities

The GVSU Applied Computing Institute (ACI) connects industry collaborators with the faculty and student expertise needed to solve computing problems.

Moving ACI to the DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health creates additional opportunities for collaboration with providers on Grand Rapids’ Medical Mile, said Jonathan Englesma, professor of computing and director of ACI.

“The new space will provide students and faculty working on industry-sponsored computing projects a collaborative, state-of-the-art work environment in the heart of Grand Rapids,” Engelsma said. “We’re very excited for this chance to expand our footprint to support more experiential learning opportunities for our students.”

Englesma said ACI team members have been instrumental in solving many health care-related computing problems. Recently, a team of computer science students created an Apple Watch app, DecontaminAide, designed to assist the wearer in monitoring daily actions that could increase risk of exposure to COVID-19.