Global Awards News

LONDON: A virtual care centre today released new images of its plan for a healthcare innnovation hub.

Sanford Health’s new Sanford Virtual Care Center has started construction, and its leaders are working on finalizing what all will happen inside it.

One floor of the 60,000-square-foot building likely will be dedicated to innovation and education, said Brad Schipper, president of operations for Sanford’s virtual care initiative.

“We’re determining what exactly will go in, but some traditional things like videoconferencing and television screens and IT connections, but you get into interesting things with virtual reality and augmented reality and simulation that’s really quite exciting,” Schipper said. “And we know some of that we’ll be adding right up to when it starts. If we brought in everything now, it may be outdated in two years, but we’re making sure the building can handle everything we need to plug and play at that time.”

The building is scheduled to open in 2024.

The other floor will support Sanford’s virtual care operation, which already is being run from various places across the enterprise.

Schipper estimates more than 100 people will work full time in the new building, such as clinicians, technicians and IT support staff, with many others coming and going for training or to work in the innovation center.

“We can have startups come in and work side by side with us as we try to pilot new things,” he said.

“Having been part of multiple building projects, this is completely different in that the technology backbone in this building is extraordinary.”

The building itself also is being designed so it can double in size as needed. It’s located at the Sanford Sports Complex in northwest Sioux Falls.

“And there are multiple pieces of land around our property as well where we have expansion opportunity,” Schipper said. “We’ve already expanded in a recent amount of time about 24 specialty services across our footprint, and we continue to provide some services internationally, so a lot of momentum has been created. One of the silver linings with COVID, I think, is everyone realized there’s a place for virtual as long as you educate the people who provide and receive care in a thoughtful way.”

The project was supported by a $350 million donation from Denny Sanford. The health system announced its virtual care initiative in 2021 designed to address health care in rural and underserved areas through technology.

In addition to the Sanford Virtual Care Center in Sioux Falls, five pilot satellite clinics will be placed where services are otherwise unavailable or diminishing.