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ST. LOUIS - The innovative design for the Mercy Center for Performance Medicine and Specialty Care was recently selected from 166 submissions to be presented at the European Healthcare Design 2024 Congress, held at the Royal College of Physicians in London, England.

Charis Trost, Mercy executive director of strategic planning and design, presents in at the European Healthcare Design 2024 Congress.

Organized by SALUS Global Knowledge Exchange and Architects for Health, the annual conference showcases the best in health care design from all over the world. The theme this year was Natural Intelligence: Creating Self-Learning Health Systems.

Charis Trost, Mercy executive director of strategic planning and design, presented to a capacity audience of more than 600 participants in attendance and hundreds more streaming live around the world.

Mercy's abstract was titled, A Building Designed as a Chapter in a Lifelong Patient Relationship: Mercy Center for Performance Medicine and Specialty Care.

"Patient experience ranks among the top objectives for virtually every new health care venture. But for each individual or organization, the term itself can carry a meaning that is quite varied," Trost said. "For Mercy, the experience is not about a transaction or a moment in time, it's the cultivation of a lifelong relationship between the patient and their health system. This idea was the driving force behind Mercy's 273,000-square foot Center for Performance Medicine and Specialty Care."

Health care is constantly changing, so Trost and her team knew the traditional design approach would fall short in achieving the project's long-term measure of success. They spent six months studying, touring and listening to understand and document the full patient experience.

"The experience-first approach resulted in a building that functions today as a living prototype, capable of integrating and enabling new technological interfaces, clinical programs and patient flows in a world where digital meets physical without disruption to its core clinical programs," Trost said. "In its first year of operation, the Center for Performance Medicine and Specialty Care has established itself as a new design and experience benchmark for Mercy, and already has activated innovative new partnerships like the Center for Precision Medicine with Mayo Clinic."

Mercy, one of the 20 largest U.S. health systems and named the top large system in the U.S. for excellent patient experience by NRC Health, serves millions annually with nationally recognized care and one of the nation's largest and highest performing Accountable Care Organizations in quality and cost. Mercy is a highly integrated, multi-state health care system including more than 50 acute care and specialty (heart, children's, orthopedic and rehab) hospitals, convenient and urgent care locations, imaging centers and pharmacies. Mercy has over 900 physician practice locations and outpatient facilities, more than 4,500 physicians and advanced practitioners and 50,000 co-workers serving patients and families across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy also has clinics, outpatient services and outreach ministries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. In fiscal year 2023 alone, Mercy provided more than half a billion dollars of free care and other community benefits, including traditional charity care and unreimbursed Medicaid.