virtual hospital
(1) An evolving format for providing health care in a central location (’hub’) that relies on components of telemedicine and high-tech communications devices to connect it to a regional hospital, where a greater range of expertise is available
A variation on this theme would be a ‘Sims Hospital’, modelled after the Sims video games, in which a medical student interacts with virtual patients, including mannequins and various points in a simulated medical centre
(2) A repository of online information which answers patient questions—at the patient’s level of sophistication—about diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that take place in the hospital
(3) A medical centre that has optimised the bidirectional and/or interactive flow of data from the patient to the various points at which he will interface with the centre’s health care providers and its physical plant during his stay
Heavy reliance on information technologies appears to reduce length of stay, medical errors and improve outcomes