Nobody enjoys the wait in an emergency room, especially if you’re the one experiencing any pain. This excruciating wait could possibly be gone in the next few years for people in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy has announced plans for of a new virtual care center. There will be no patients at the center, only doctors, nurses and other caregivers. Mercy announced the facility today via a YouTube video. Skip to the 1:55 minute mark to get the details about the facility:
The four-story, 120,000-square-foot center located in Chesterfield, Missouri, will open in 2015 and accommodate nearly 300 physicians, nurses, specialists, researchers and support staff. Care will be delivered 24/7 via audio, video and data connections to locations across Mercy as well as outside of Mercy through partnerships with other health care providers and large employers. Mercy estimates that the center will manage more than 3 million telehealth visits in the next five years. The center also will be a hub for advancing telemedicine through research and training.
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The center will have several focus areas, including home monitoring and telesepsis programs. Mercy plans to to provide ongoing care and home monitoring for more than 1,000 patients diagnosed with congestive heart failure to reduce hospitalization and readmissions. The telesepsis program will help doctors spot warning signs for patients at risk for the complication. Mercy’s electronic health record automatically searches for more than 800 warning signs to identify patients at risk for sepsis.
There will be neurologists on staff at the new unit 24 hours a day to evaluate symptoms of a stroke. The company’s SafeWatch eICU also offers round-the-clock care through in-room monitoring through video and two-way audio. This monitoring provides care for an emergency room’s or hospital’s ICU patients immediately.
The new Mercy center will provide pediatric telecardiology consulting services as well. In certain cases, results of echocardiograms are needed immediately, but due to geography or technological limitations can be delayed a week or more. With the new system, a virtual cardiology team is able to diagnose heart trouble much more quickly.
Mercy is the sixth largest Catholic health care system in the U.S. and includes 32 acute care hospitals, four heart hospitals, two children’s hospitals, three rehab hospitals and one orthopedic hospital, 700 outpatient facilities, 40,000 co-workers and more than 2,100 Mercy Clinic physicians in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy also has outreach ministries in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The video below explains how doctors in the health system have been using several telemedicine programs.
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