As technology plays a greater and greater role in medicine, some have felt the loss of the personal touch. The family practitioner may seem to be in a bit of a rush these days, and patients waiting for critical results may start to feel like just another number. No one wants to do without the benefits of the latest advances in medicine. But as healthcare organizations seem to keep getting ever larger, none of us want our individual needs to get lost in the shuffle.
At the University of Missouri, one of the most advanced new medical facilities in the country is dedicated to resolving this tension between focus on the individual and the leading edge of scientific discovery. The Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health Institute, a $221 million, 265,000-square-foot facility that opened its doors in October 2021, is designed to anchor a bold new initiative that unites private and public resources in the quest for individualized medicine. But bringing an enterprise of this complexity to fruition called for a forward-looking approach to design and construction as well.