Physicians and nurses at Chesterfield, Mo.-based Mercy Virtual Care Center carry out all of the same tasks healthcare personnel at traditional hospitals undertake: checking a patient's vital signs, recording notes, even conducting exams and engaging in small talk. However, the patients do not travel to the facility to receive care, because the hospital has no beds, Politico reports.
Instead, Mercy Virtual Care physicians and nurses remain seated in front of monitors, some showing patients in their homes and others plastered with images of the patients' internal organs and limbs and a list of problems that computer programs tell them to look for.
The center began as an office in St. Louis-based Mercy's flagship hospital in 2006, but was converted into its own hospital in 2015. Officials sought to construct the facility keeping in mind the impending structural and organizational changes in the industry during the next few years. For that reason, officials emphasized the importance of virtual communication to keep chronically ill patients at home to avoid expensive hospitalizations that may expose them to other stressors and infections.
However, officials claim the biggest difference between Mercy Virtual Care and the traditional hospital is the difference in payment models. According to Politico, Mercy Virtual is currently operating in the black, in part because existing Medicare payment reforms have converted some of the agency’s payments into lump sums for treating specific illnesses. Randall Moore, MD, president of Mercy Virtual Care, said the hospital is able to treat patients and discharge them quicker than the average hospital, allowing the facility to pocket the money it does not spend on care for patients in need of longer hospital stays, the report states.
"Our idea is to deliver better patient care and outcomes at lower cost, so we can say to an insurer, 'You expect to spend $100 million on this population this year. We can do it for $98 million with fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths and everyone's happy,'" said Dr. Moore. "It's a very strong future business model."
The hospital's care model emphasizes the notion that healthcare providers do not need to wait for a sick person to enter the facility before treating them. At Mercy Virtual Care, physicians and practitioners reach out to patients before they're aware of their own symptoms, often creating a more intimate relationship between the patient and their provider, the report states.
While the majority of Mercy Virtual Care's telehealth and remote monitoring services are used by patients at hospitals within the Mercy health system, Mercy Virtual Care has also partnered with Chapell Hill, N.C.-based UNC Health Care and Penn State Health, the parent company of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey (Pa.) Medical Center. Officials at both institutions report improved outcomes since employing Mercy Virtual Care's services, including lower rates of physician burnout, fewer hospitalizations and fewer patient readmissions, among other outcomes, according to the report.
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