Sanford Health has reached a virtual care milestone, expanding access and improving affordability for rural patients while equipping the healthcare workforce for a technology-driven future. The program was accelerated by a transformative $350 million virtual care investment in 2021 from donor Denny Sanford. To date, the program has saved patients hundreds of millions of dollars in travel costs and reduced more than 60.5 million miles of travel.
Sanford Health’s virtual services span nearly 80 specialties, from behavioral health to oncology and pediatric pulmonology, and support patients across clinics, hospitals, long-term care settings and home environments. According to Dave Newman, M.D., chief medical officer of virtual care at Sanford Health, “For many of our patients, it’s virtual care or no care at all. That reality has pushed us to innovate out of necessity.”
Each virtual care visit saves patients an average 176-mile round trip and $273 in travel-related costs. In 2025, patients saved an estimated $41 million by reducing the need to take time off work and paying for fuel, meals and other out-of-pocket expenses. The opening of Sanford’s Virtual Care Center in late 2024 significantly expanded the effort, creating a centralized hub for telemedicine, hospital-at-home programs, remote monitoring, decentralized clinical trials and specialty consultation.
Sanford Health’s virtual care model integrates education and workforce development to prepare clinicians for technology-enabled care. Through the Sanford Health Education Institute, the organization supports virtual graduate medical education rotations, immersive VR-based simulation training and interdisciplinary learning. Psychology interns have completed year-long virtual care rotations serving patients across North Dakota and Minnesota, while neurology residents participate in virtual reality-based case simulations. A virtual operating room enables surgical and procedural teams to practice with advanced technologies and collaborate across distances.
The Innovation Center operates innovation labs within the Virtual Care Center focused on patient-centered solutions for rural care, including a makerspace with 3D printing capabilities that has enabled design and testing of medical devices, several of which have received FDA approval.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://news.sanfordhealth.org/health-care-leadership/sanford-health-reaches-virtual-care-milestone/