Dive Brief:
- Mercy Virtual, the telehealth division of MO-based Mercy Health System, is preparing to open what it says is the nation's first "virtual care center."
- The center, which cost around $50 million, will serve as a hub for Mercy's 75-plus telemedicine programs.
- The 120,000-square-foot building will also include an expanded electronic ICU (eICU) command center.
Dive Insight:
At the recent American Telemedicine Association conference in Los Angeles, Dr. Tom Hale, Mercy Virtual's Executive Director, told MedCity News the goals of the virtual care center are to centralize work processes, create interoperability and make sure communication of information fits into clinician workflows. "Done separately and in silos, [telehealth] becomes almost a distraction," Hale said. "You need to centralize processes using a computer to do the hard work for you, with clinical decision support."
Hale also said he would eventually like to see virtual care centers all over the U.S., and not just operated by Mercy.