Des Moines University and the Polk County Board of Supervisors, along with other educational partners, are collaborating to establish a shared regional simulation center on DMU’s former Grand Avenue campus that will provide advanced health care training opportunities to health care education institutions across Central Iowa.

The new center will be located in Ryan Hall, a 90,000-square-foot facility, and offer medical simulation technology and training spaces for the region’s post-secondary and higher education health sciences programs.

At a press conference Tuesday, the board of supervisors announced a $5 million contribution to support the project. The planning, design and creation of the center in Ryan Hall is expected to take up to a year to launch, according to a news release.

Polk County Supervisor Angela Connolly said in the release that the county’s partnership on the project began after she met with DMU President and CEO Angela Walker Franklin last spring to discuss workforce education needs and revitalizing the DMU campus through a shared training facility.

“We know that the needs of our individual health care institutions are large, and we believe that investing in a shared resource will put Central Iowa on the map as an education innovator in the health care workforce,” Connolly said in a prepared statement.

Des Moines Area Community College, Mercy College of Health Sciences and Des Moines Public Schools are collaborating with Polk County and DMU to develop a shared recruitment and retention strategy, as well as strategies to engage rural partners with the center.

The simulation center is intended to be “one piece of a larger vision” to build Iowa’s pipeline of health care workers, the release said. The collaboration overall will focus on engaging Des Moines Public Schools students, maximizing and increasing capacity in local health care programs, incentivizing graduates to stay in Iowa.

“DMU sought to spearhead this collaborative community initiative in response to the challenges locally and nationally recruiting skilled health care workers. … This is a significant step in our ongoing commitment to health care education and our community and allows us to begin to realize our vision for our 3200 Grand Avenue facilities,” Walker Franklin said in a prepared statement.

To watch the press conference, visit Polk County’s YouTube channel.