Indiana University and IU Health officials broke ground on the new IU Health Bloomington and Regional Academic Health Center Tuesday morning.
IU Health Bloomington created quite a stir in April of 2015 when it announced a new hospital on the city's east side on the IU golf driving range.
IU Health and IU-Bloomington are partneringto create a health center that will include both the hospital and university buildings for health care training programs.
Officials from IU Health and Indiana University praised the new center for its combined focus on academics, research and patient care.
IU President Michael McRobbie called the health center the beginning of "a completely new era in health care" for the region.
"Academic health centers bring together a university's research activities and the activities involved in training the next generation of health care professionals with the clinical activities of a hospital," he says.
McRobbie also announced that much of the funding for the new center will come from revenue from the Big Ten Network. Details have not been released on that funding.
IU Health President and CEO Dennis Murphy says the center will provide room for more educational programs to address the shortage of health care workers, a growing problem in the medical industry.
"Those programs need space to expand to be able to create more professionals to care for what is an aging population," he says.
Construction crews will begin moving earth in the next few weeks.
Joe Hren contributed to this report.