Mercy Health plans new MO facilities

Mercy Health plans to build a new hospital and other medical facilities in St. Charles County and a "virtual care center" in Chesterfield. Mercy announced the projects, part of a larger eight-year investment plan, on Tuesday evening at a presentation before 150 invited guests, including Gov. Jay Nixon, at the Edward Jones Atrium on Manchester Road. Mercy president and chief executive Lynn Britton said that plans to build a hospital, a multispecialty clinic and other facilities in the St. Louis area's most rapidly expanding county are still in the early planning stages. The building projects are budgeted for $290 million in St. Charles County and $90 million in Chesterfield. Mercy Health, whose assets total about $4.4 billion, operates Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Creve Coeur and 27 other hospitals in four states including Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. It employs about 28,000 people system wide.