‘We want to be breaking new ground,’ says Orlando Portale, Palomar Pomerado Health’s chief technology and innovation officer.

For the last few months, 10 Web developers have worked to re-create Palomar Pomerado Health’s hospital of the future in Second Life, the 3-D online world that hosts millions of residents.

In the past year, companies like Coca-Cola Co., Reuters and Wells Fargo & Co. have generated headlines for opening and closing campaigns, bureaus and offices in this popular virtual world.

When PPH hired Orlando Portale as its chief technology and innovation officer in May, he arrived armed with plans to put the hospital system, which serves North County, into the middle of Second Life.

Within six months, PPH had brokered a deal with IT networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. to launch Palomar Medical Center West, a virtual form of facility located on a 900-square-meter island.

The hospital plans were taken directly from blueprints supplied by CO Architects, the Los Angeles-based firm that designed Palomar West.

It’s the first time a hospital has participated in Second Life, an achievement that Portale believes will put PPH in the top 2 percent of hospitals nationwide.

Hospital visitors — or rather their avatars, who serve as virtual personas in Second Life — can tour the site, try out patient beds and test technology that industry professionals believe will be created in the future.

“It’s very innovative, very groundbreaking,” Portale said. “I have a vision where health care is going.”

For example, the operating room offers a glassed-off “cockpit” where surgeons sit and guide robotic arms through surgeries.

Second Life and Business

Linden Research Inc., a San Francisco-based private company, launched Second Life in June 2003.

More than 12 million users have registered as residents, including 1 million who logged on last month.

Though free, basic membership limits a resident to most of what makes Second Life so appealing. However, the purchase of apparel, cars, homes and even hairstyles comes at a price, which must be paid for in Linden dollars.