The new 45,000-square-foot Health Sciences Building at Elmhurst University opened Oct. 3 amid ribbon-cutting pomp. The state-of-the-art facility now houses the Departments of Nursing, Public Health, Occupational Therapy, and Communication Sciences and Disorders.

The $30 million building was financed through existing funds from philanthropic gifts, grants and reserve funds, officials said.

“The institution needed it, the community needed it,” said Heather Hall, dean of the School of Health Sciences and professor in the Department of Kinesiology. “It is allowing our various health professions across campus to come together into one space.”

The Nursing Department alone has 436 students. There are 166 in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program and 54 in the Masters of Occupational Therapy program.

Hall said the building makes it possible for the university to foster Interprofessional Practice and Education methods, and it also means the school no longer has to use Elmhurst Memorial Hospital.

“We were able to bring all of that learning to campus,” Hall said.

Bringing all of the departments under the same roof has been “transformational and game-changing for us,” said Becky Hulett, chair of the Department of Nursing and Public Health, and associate professor of Nursing. “Our faculties now collaborate every day.”

The new building’s facilities also enable some specialization in teaching, Hall said, while expanding services available to the community.

“Increased space has tremendously assisted us in separating some of the underclassmen from the upperclassmen in their learning environment,” she said. “We’ve been able to expand our Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic which serves the community. We have more treatment rooms, a larger waiting room, additional reserved parking.”

Consequently, they are able to treat more clients, Hall noted. That includes school age children in the afternoons.

Hall was excited about the state-of-the-art equipment in the new building, as well as its new Activities of Daily Living Lab for occupational therapy.

“It’s an actual apartment that is set up with a bathroom, bathtub, shower, living room, bed, kitchen,” Hall said. “The students have an opportunity to practice what it will be like simulating real life experiences working with clients.”

Hall said community members are invited to come on certain days, free of charge, to be evaluated by second-year master’s degree students, who will offer tips about improving their daily living activities.

“We have a much bigger low-fidelity lab where we have new low-fidelity mannequins,” Hulett said. Curtains separating beds make each space look like a hospital room, she noted. There is classroom space in the middle of the lab.

“Our students can learn how to take blood pressure, learn how to do things, and then immediately go to the bed and practice those skills on low-fidelity mannequins,” Hulett said.

Simulation labs are equipped with high-fidelity mannequins that can breathe, sweat, have seizures, and respond to treatment.

There are baby and adult mannequins, and mannequins of different skin colors.

“We are the only school in the Midwest that has a 360-degree immersive virtual reality room,” Hulett said. “This room is going to allow our students to experience patient rooms, patient conditions before they’re stepping into a situation in a hospital with real patients.”

Hall said that immersive experience will benefit Elmhurst students as well as their patients down the road.

“The bottom line is that we want to have a hands-on learning environment — one that mirrors the complexity of the demands of a real-world clinical setting,” she said.

Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.