Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare gifted $15 million to Salt Lake City-based University of Utah to help fund the construction of a medical school facility, according to the Deseret News.
Here are four things to know.
1. The donation will help fund the construction of a facility to replace University of Utah's 52-year-old medical school, which is "seismically unsound and must be torn down in the coming years," according to campus officials.
2. A. Loris Betz, MD, PhD, University of Utah School of Medicine executive dean, said that there is an impending critical physician shortage in the state, so the new medical school is needed.
3. Construction on the new medical school building, estimated to cost $185 million, will begin in 2019 and is scheduled to be completed in 2022.
4. Intermountain Healthcare President and CEO Marc Harrison, MD, said the donation will help train future medical personnel and address the state's looming shortage.
"The medical community is all going to benefit from this gift, but more importantly, the patients we serve will. We're [going to] be training the next generation of clinicians, and we're training them in an environment of teamwork and collaboration, which increasingly is how healthcare is delivered," said Dr. Harrison, according to the Deseret News.