Marquette University - David A. Straz Jr. Hall College of Nursing

Addressing Critical Nursing Shortages

Marquette University’s David A. Straz Jr. Hall College of Nursing is poised to take on the critical nursing shortages in innovative and inclusive ways.

The healthcare industry has been under serious pressure from a number of directions, including the global pandemic and the long-term cultural disparities that have caused nurses to leave the field feeling over-worked and under-appreciated. The Straz Hall College of Nursing takes on these headwinds with an innovative and inclusive new building that will also double the number of students going through its program. Through the use of forward-looking technology and wellness-driven design, the College of Nursing creates an aspirational home that shifts the mindset of how to engender empathetic caregivers in the midst of both a technological and a cultural transformation.

The project turned to Straz Hall, which originally housed the College of Business Administration, and joined a 1950’s building with a 1980’s addition. Uniting the two architectural expressions in a single identity created a unique opportunity: to visually and aesthetically embody the empathetic, emotional caregiver of the 1950’s and the tech-rich, medically sophisticated skills champion of the 1980’s. To do this, the design team had several solutions. On the exterior, they created a new “face” of the building that pulls from both the 1950’s building and the 1980’s addition that created a cohesive identity. They also took advantage of the buildings verticality, creating micro-atriums throughout the five stories that offer transparency, places to gather, and opportunities for the faculty to integrate with students.

Technology and Simulation

Though Marquette had a newer simulation center in Clarke Hall that received significant renovations in 2012, that space was not meeting the demands of their curriculum or flexibility for future technologies. This project helps correct those disparities and provides a simulation environment that accommodates current and future needs as well as equips the College of Nursing with the technologies and innovative space types needed to be leaders in healthcare education. The College of Nursing has a unique debrief and prebrief culture and cadence that requires a minimum 1:1 ratio of debrief room to sim lab, with flexible options that allow them to get closer to a 2:1 when necessary. This is an unusual quantity compared to some of their peers, and allows them to maximize their efficiency of throughput through their sim center at any given time, and alleviate many of their current scheduling and staffing issues.

Marquette also wanted to explore extreme ideas of flexibility within simulation environments. As part of their high-fidelity Intensive care simulation environment, we designed six flexible simulation labs, which means they can quickly change scenarios throughout the course of a semester and over time. An elevated OR simulation suite was designed as a flexible autonomous environment focused on the Nurse Anesthesia Program and gives the College of Nursing the appropriate amount of space and updated technologies to perform interprofessional education simulations as program and partnerships grow. Two student practice labs positioned off of the student commons allow for badge-access, peer-to-peer skills practice on real equipment outside the security of the simulation center. These were designed with an eye towards flexibility as they can transform into future sim labs as the program grows and evolves. Lastly four skills labs were designed for larger cohort sizes and an efficient flow from instruction and demonstration into skills practice stations. Two of these labs can be combined to double the space and number of students present for skills blitzes.

Aspirations and Transformations

Addressing the critical nursing shortage takes both fortitude and vision. The deep-seeded cultural inequalities need to be addressed in the heathcare industry, and mitigated in the learning environments. Through an innovative and inclusive design process, this new home for nurses will have the ability to affect change on an individual nurse and faculty level while heralding a much-needed shift in the clinicals burden on the healthcare industry.