TAMPA, Fla (Oct 30, 2019) – The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM) at the University of South Florida in Tampa and Microsoft teamed up to create the first-ever Medical School of Innovation, placing the school among the most innovative for integrating technology into approaches for teaching medicine.
The strategic relationship is based on the creative and forward-thinking plans, design and construction for the new USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute nearing completion in downtown Tampa – classes begin in the new building Jan. 13, 2020.
For about two years, MCOM and Microsoft have collaborated on the best ways to impact how medical students will learn in the new building, creating ‘outside the box’ plans for using newer, faster, leaner technology from both the literal hardware/software perspective, as well as from a construction and physical space perspective.
Building a new facility for MCOM provided the perfect opportunity to change how medical students are taught, said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.
“Today’s physicians must keep up with the exponentially expanding quantity of medical knowledge, a process that begins in medical school,” Lockwood said. “With this new building, we had a blank canvas on which to create an environment that advances the learning experience. Anything we can do to help our students engage and curate information better and faster will help our graduates succeed as physicians. We are pleased we were given the opportunity to be named Microsoft’s first-ever Medical School of Innovation.”
“Microsoft sees the opportunity to help advance not only medical education but also collaborative, active learning in higher education as a whole with the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine,” said Jamie Harper, vice president, U.S. Education at Microsoft Corp. “The collaboration is a great example of the advances that can take place when we combine resources for the greater good. We believe this effort will lead to a stronger medical program for USF Health.”
This joint effort with Microsoft is one of several ways MCOM is using technology like Microsoft Teams and Power BI to transform medical education. MCOM will also use Microsoft tools to map curriculum and gather real-time analytics that track and promote student success.
Among the Microsoft hardware being used within our new building are several Surface Studios, Teams in every collaboration space and classroom, and Surface Hubs on mobile stands throughout each floor and learning environment.
###
–USF Health-
USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, the Biomedical Sciences Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs, and USF Health’s multispecialty physicians group. The University of South Florida, established in 1956 and located in Tampa, is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. USF is ranked in the Top 25 nationally for research expenditures among public universities, according to the National Science Foundation. The USF System has an annual budget of $1.8 billion and an annual economic impact of $4.4 billion. For more information, visit www.health.usf.edu.
