Mercy, a Catholic healthcare system based in St. Louis, has officially opened its new 125,000-square-foot Virtual Care Center which houses 330 Mercy co-workers--but no patients. The facility is billed as the world's first such center.

“It’s like a hospital without beds,” said Randy Moore, MD, MBA, president of Mercy Virtual, in a release. “We have the medical team here, but with technology like highly-sensitive cameras and real-time vital signs, our providers can ‘see’ patients where they are. That may be in one of Mercy’s traditional hospitals, a physician office or in some cases, the patient’s home.”

The $54 million building houses Mercy’s existing telemedicine programs, including:

• Mercy SafeWatch--Launched in 2006, it’s the largest single-hub electronic intensive care unit in the nation. Doctors and nurses monitor patients’ vital signs and provide a second set of eyes to bedside caregivers in 30 ICUs across five states. SafeWatch ICUs have seen a 15 percent reduction in hospital stay lengths.
• Telestroke--Patients who come to the ER without an onsite neurologist but with symptoms of a stroke can be seen immediately by a neurologist via telemedicine.
• Virtual Hospitalists--A team of doctors is dedicated to seeing patients within the hospital around-the-clock using virtual care technology. They can order needed tests or read results, resulting in quicker care.
• Home Monitoring--Mercy provides continuous monitoring for hundreds of chronically ill patients in their homes after hospitalization.

Mercy’s Virtual Care Center is also designed to be a workspace for innovations in patient care and product testing. In one newly-launched pilot program, an internal medicine doctor checks in daily with a small set of high-risk patients. “We’re testing the concept that a virtual visit every day in the homes of those patients will keep them healthier and out of the hospital,” Moore said. “Rather than having a lot of different doctors for each of those patients’ conditions, they have one doctor who’s monitoring everything. The people and technology in place here make that possible. It’s easy to see if new ideas work. Basically, you dream it or build it and we can test it quickly.”