Msgr. Michael Bliss, director of pastoral care at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, blesses a meeting room on the new OSF Innovation floors at the Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center. (The Catholic Post/Tom Dermody)

As the third and fourth floors of the Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center were dedicated Aug. 12, the holy water blessed not only the physical elements of a new collaborative environment known as OSF Innovation, but the creative ideas that will be sparked here to benefit patients locally and even around the world.

“What we have built together is something so special and very, very transformational,” said Sister Judith Ann Duvall, chairperson of the OSF HealthCare Board of Directors.

Sister Judith Ann is also major superior of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, and the new $12 million project will serve to “open the door for future innovation that we never thought was possible, nor I’m sure our pioneer sisters ever dreamed of.”

OSF Innovatoin occupies the third and fourth floors of the Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center in Peoria. (The Catholic Post/Tom Dermody)

The six-story building on the campus of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria was dedicated in 2013. Affectionately called Jump, the center is a collaboration between OSF HealthCare and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria (UICOMP). It combines medical equipment and the latest simulation technology to provide better education and performance training for students, physicians, nurses and other medical professionals, as well as research.

The Aug. 12 ceremonies celebrated the creation of OSF Innovation and transformed the third and fourth floors into a central hub for creating solutions to health care’s most complex problems.

“As you tour, what you won’t see are barriers and walls that segregate us from each other,” said Dr. Jeffry Tillery, senior vice president and chief transformation officer for OSF HealthCare. “You will see open glass and meeting spaces that welcome us together to collaborate and work together.”

A number of research, engineering and analytics departments will collaborate in the new space, which includes 50 meeting rooms equipped with the latest teleconferencing and digital technologies. An open set of stairs connects the two floors, and inspirational messages from Mother Teresa to Henry Ford adorn the walls.

Before blessing the two floors, Msgr. Michael Bliss, director of pastoral care at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, noted the impact that those who work at OSF Innovations will have on patient care.

“Often I’m mindful that many of us in the ministry are not necessarily at the bedside,” he said. “But everything that goes on in this building has everything to do with that patient and their family.”

Michelle Conger, chief strategy officer for OSF HealthCare, said the dedication celebrated more than the impressive physical accomplishment made possible by so many.  “We also are celebrating what we can’t see yet, all the things to come by bringing people from across our ministry together here” to form new partnerships and create new technologies, devices and strategies to improve patient care.

About 60 tradesmen worked on the project, with construction completed in July.