When Healthcare goes beyond hospital walls

Mercy Virtual Care Centre is a hospital in Chesterfield, Missouri (USA). It opened its doors in October 2015 but it is not a health centre like any other. You see, it has no beds; it is the first virtual hospital in the world. 330 professionals work in this hospital building from where they attend their patients through video consultations, wearables, and remote care at home. The first time I read about this hospital, it was clear to me that this was the healthcare model of the future.

In 2016 we were pioneers in launching video consultation in Spain and this provided us with the necessary tools to face this pandemic. Thanks to the use of video consultations, we have helped many people maintain contact with their doctor or to follow a treatment without having to move from home: we have carried out more than 230,000 video consultations during the state of alarm, sometimes up to 5,000 in a day. The data is irrefutable, and nobody today doubts that digitalised services have a clear role in improving the health management of the future. A health that is universal and where the collaboration between all the parties involved, including the public and private sectors, is essential.

This week we have taken another step towards the healthcare of the future. We have launched BluaU, which provides healthcare outside our hospital walls. Among other things, BluaU will allow remote monitoring of Covid-19 patients, a service that we introduced during the pandemic and that we now incorporating for all our customers. So far, we have monitored 100 Covid-19 patients through wearables, which have allowed us to react to their clinical evolution and adapt their treatment. We have clinical data that confirms that digital monitoring allows for a better evolution of patients and, we have recently published these results in the scientific Journal of Integrative Cardiology: "Sanitas Study on Remote Monitoring of Patients with COVID-19".

In addition to Covid-19, we also believe that it is important to facilitate the follow-up and monitoring of patients with other chronic conditions. Obesity, asthma, and heart disease are among the firsts pathologies that we will monitor, thanks to digital tools that will connect doctors with their patients wherever they are.

We will not stop here. We are convinced that digitisation also plays a role (an important one) in prevention. Therefore, we will introduce more innovation to the diagnostic process as well. To help with early diagnosis, we have incorporated a digital tool that measures vital signs through facial imaging using mobile phones. The results of this tool have been verified by prestigious scientific publications, such as the journal Nature. By simply logging into the Sanitas App and using the mobile camera, users can obtain medical data such as their heart and respiratory rates and blood pressure. This data may be shared with their doctors, who will assess the information to determine the patient´s state of health.

In line with the objective of greater prevention, we also have a new digital programme that helps reduce risk factors for various diseases. Many of the most common pathologies in Western society respond lifestyle changes. If we improve our habits, we can reduce the risk of different pathologies such as heart disease, respiratory conditions, or cancer.

This is just the first step towards the future, towards a healthcare that is more digital, more preventive, and closer to people. Not only in the US, as in the case of Mercy Hospital, or in Spain, with BluaU, but throughout the world, companies must lead innovation to build a better, healthier, and more resilient society.