Ask anyone who has worked in healthcare as a provider of care or technology or related services and they will no doubt have a story or two about a particular patient to recall and how it changed their lives.  These patients and their stories allow us to remember why we went into our chosen profession and what it means to be a healthcare provider or provide goods or services in the healthcare industry. 

I still recall encouters with patients and their names from the time I worked as an orderly during college.  The stories have accumulated through medical school and residency. Additional stories are added on a regular basis from discussions at multidisciplinary conferences and tumor boards. All are inspiring. 

I recently became aware of someone in my community, Paula Takacs, who is a cancer survivor and has recently started a foundation for sarcoma research.  After battling her disease privately with close friends and family, she and her family have shown incredible strength in taking Paula's message public to spread the word and raise research funding. 

You can learn more about Paula's story on her website. 

On April 2nd, the first annual fundraiser for The Paula Takacs Foundation will be The Sarcoma Stomp 5K/ Fun Walk in Charlotte. Proceeds of this fundraiser will benefit the Kristen Ann Carr Sarcoma Laboratory at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York. 

More about Paula and her incredible strength.

Now clinicians can receive real-time high definition video through ordinary internet connections and without the need for special software.

Forget about the limitations and cost burdens associated with conventional telepathology systems.Traditional products typically include special hardware at each end, limit users to specific point-to-point communication processing, and require client software downloads. Be There Anywhere™ eliminates these complexities, requiring only the compact iMedHD™ package and Internet connectivity. This highly secure offering, with video capture capabilities, is the ideal solution for real time Internet sharing and collaboration of true live high definition images.

• Enables medical clinicians to use live 1080p HD imaging.
• All that is needed is any PC or MAC web browser and a broadband Internet connection.
• No need for special hardware or software.
• Incredibly intuitive and easy to use, even for first-time users – no user manual is necessary.
• Multiple clinicians can easily communicate – all participants have shared pointing and annotation abilities.
• Optional webcam, Voice over IP, document presentation and desktop sharing capabilities.
• Dynamic browser control for an excellent live HD viewing experience – all can easily adjust image display.
• Allows immediate informed diagnoses and decision-making when time is of the essence.
• With RMT’s new phone-home capability the solution can be easily moved to any location for flexible use and provides significant cost benefits.

For more information, or an online demonstration, call Don Marchon at
1-888 988-8439 • don.marchon@rmtcentral.com • http://www.rmtcentral.com

Partnership Provides Free Digital Archive Showcasing the Contribution of Surgical Pathology to Patient Care Dating Back to 1945

Augusta, GA and Vista, CA – February 22, 2011 - The United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP), the global leader in the transmission of knowledge in the field of pathology for more than a century, and Aperio, the global leader in providing digital pathology solutions that improve patient care, will be showcasing the digital launch of the Dr. Juan Rosai Collection of Surgical Pathology Seminars at the 100th USCAP Annual Meeting, to be held February 26 – March 4, 2011, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio, TX. (Booth 114 has been reserved for viewing of the collection.) 

Dr. Juan Rosai, a world-renowned expert and consultant in surgical pathology, has donated his extensive glass slide seminar series collection inherited from the late Lauren V. Ackerman, MD for the world to view. The complete collection consists of almost 20,000 cases originally presented at more than 1,400 pathology seminars, and comprises digital slide images of the original slides, clinical history, and diagnostic summaries, along with present day commentary by Rosai and other experts. At this time, seminars are continuously being added to the site, with the full collection to be accessible within the coming months. 

“I am honored that the USCAP and Aperio have collaborated to provide the pathology community with a digital archive and interactive learning environment for this one-of-a-kind, historical collection,” said Rosai. “Now, pathologists around the world will be able to access and learn about the evolution of patient care from a pathology perspective. I am very appreciative that the collection will be preserved for eternity for the future of pathologists around the world.” 

USCAP and Aperio announced their partnership in 2010 to develop the infrastructure for a digital archive. The collection has been digitized using Aperio’s ScanScope® scanners to ensure high-resolution image quality, and is accessible to the global pathology community, free of charge, through the USCAP website (http://www.USCAP.org). The USCAP has developed a custom-built website to dynamically interact and interface with the digital slide collection to provide diagnostic and historical context, as well as interactive learning tools. The whole-slide images are hosted by SecondSlide®, Aperio’s free, secure, digital slide sharing service for pathology. 

Victor Reuter, former president of the USCAP and vice chair of the Department of Pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, commented, “Dr. Rosai has served as an inspiration to thousands of pathologists throughout the world for many decades. He epitomizes everything that morphology has contributed to the understanding of disease across many disciplines. A masterful teacher, it should not surprise us that he has maintained this collection over the years and has now chosen to share it with the global pathology community. I congratulate Aperio and USCAP for supporting this project that is sure to have profound educational and historical importance.” 

“Aperio’s ongoing advancements in digital pathology systems, including our patented, high-resolution slide creation, image visualization techniques and innovative slide sharing systems are completely transforming the pathology landscape,” stated Jared N. Schwartz, MD, PhD, chief medical officer at Aperio. “Digital pathology provides the means to significantly advance scientific knowledge, whether it be through the preservation of valuable slide archives like the Juan Rosai collection, identifying biomarkers to advance personalized medicine, or connecting two pathologists in different parts of the world for pathology consultation.”

About USCAP

The United States & Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP/IAP) has been the global leader in the transmission of knowledge in the field of pathology for more than 100 years. The Academy has had a rich heritage of leading the provision of highest standards of pathology education for pathologist members like no other organization and attracts to its ranks the leaders in key areas of pathology. 

The phrase "Leading Pathology Educational Excellence," used in conjunction with the USCAP graphic identity, provides an accurate and appropriate description of the Academy's activities on two levels: 1) providing "leading pathology educational excellence" via its faculty and programs; 2) leading "pathology educational excellence" with ongoing innovation and scientific breakthroughs for the field of pathology. 

Through the efforts of its outstanding membership, the USCAP is able to extend educational excellence to Pathologists around the world.  

About Aperio

Aperio is the leading provider of digital pathology solutions in hospitals, reference labs, and pharmaceutical and research institutions across the world. Today, our affordable and complete product portfolio improves patient care by enhancing quality assurance, delivering more efficient workflows, facilitating access to new and more targeted therapies, and improving pathologists’ skills via lifelong education. Our comprehensive product line features our ScanScope® scanners, Spectrum™ image management (PACS) software, SecondSlide® slide sharing service for pathology, and image analysis tools and services. Aperio’s products are FDA cleared for specific clinical applications, and are intended for research and education use for other applications. For clearance updates and more information please visit http://www.aperio.com.   

Courtesy of Dan Bowman Fierce Mobile Healthcare

This post is submitted by Steve Potts, CEO of Flagship Biosciences, a companion diagnostics company. 

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.” -- Robertson Davies

These are exciting times to be consumers of digital pathology hardware. We are at the end of the 2nd generation brightfield scanners (1st Generation were the automated microscopes of CAS / VIAS / ACIS, and 2nd generation are the Nanozoomers / ScanScopes / Mirax scanners with great 20x whole slide scanning performance). Our in-house definition of a 3rd Generation brightfield scanner is the speed, quality, and error rates we expect from 2nd Generation scanners at 20x, but performed at 40x. This represents a four-fold improvement (20x to 40x is four times longer) in the last three or four years --Moore’s law marches on in brightfield scanning. To evaluate a 3rd Generation scanner, take a set of five slides to USCAP or other pathology show, and with a stopwatch evaluate the time, quality and error rate of the scans at 40x among the various new products. We are just beginning 3rd generation devices, and there are a lot of new and existing companies with innovative offerings in 2011. USCAP and CAP will likely demonstrate some fabulous choices for scanner consumers!

Now let’s look at fluorescence. At January’s Applied Immunohistochemistry and Molecular Pathology Retreat in Miami (IMHO the best and most serious conference on practical IHC year after year) there was an interesting comment, “Fluorescence microscopy is far ahead of brightfield microscopy in quantitation, but fluorescence scanning is far behind brightfield scanning”. Fluorescence scanning is simply a LOT harder than brightfield scanning. The four major fluorescent scanners on the market (3DHistech Pannoramic, Olympus VS110, Hamamatsu Nanozoomer, and the Aperio ScanScope FL) all have different advantages, and this blog could go on for pages discussing specific design tradeoffs we've evaluated. We run both brightfield and fluorescent scanning in high volume in our digital pathology lab, and here are some differences between the two scanning modalities that users should be aware of, regardless of which system is chosen:

Scanning Time:

• BRIGHTFIELD: For 15mm x 15 mm tissue sections, expect brightfield scanning times of 3 minutes at 20x, and 8-10 minutes at 40x.
• FLUORESCENCE: For fluorescence (our normal operation is three or four colors), expect 2-3 slides per hour at 20x. Forget about 40x fluorescence on whole slide images. 

QA and failure rate:

• BRIGHTFIELD: Expect to spend at least 1 minute per slide for a technician to QA a brightfield slide manually, this is required for good brightfield scanning operations, and far too many people don’t do this. Failure rates of 5% for 20x and 20% for 40x are normal, but these numbers are largely dependent on histology and slide preparation.
• FLUORESCENCE: Expect rescan rates of 20-40% at 20x, this is very much dependent on the given sample and the skill of the operator and how well tuned the fluorescent scanner is. The errors will come primarily from the tissue sample more than from the fluorescent scanning. Things like debris on the cover slip, Rocky Mountain-like tissue samples, dye over stains, are not as problematic for a brightfield scan as a fluorescent scan. 

Technician Skill:

• BRIGHTFIELD: Brightfield scanning requires a very methodical person, who is consistent and pays attention to detail in QA of each slide. There is very little biology discussion required, and scanning settings are not changed that much between studies. In other words, the scanning is generally the same regardless of histology, for most projects (TMA scanning and Z-stack do require specialized settings).
• FLUORESCENCE:  Every study requires specific knowledge of the biology that then must be used in deciding on scanning settings. One has to know the amount of autofluorescence, the differences between autofluorescence and signal in the tissue, the goal of the study. If quantitation of protein expression is required, a number of steps need to be in place standardizing the scan times and comparisons to controls, and control preparation. In short, the scanning settings are entirely dependent on the biology of each study. In our lab, a skilled Master’ level biologist runs the scanning, and we get the best results when he knows (before the study) the biological endpoint the client is trying to achieve. 

Fluorescence whole slide scanning technology is improving, and offers powerful multiplexing applications, but everything mentioned previously helps explain why there are 16 FDA protein expression clearances in brightfield digital imaging, and none in fluorescence. The pathologist's adoption of fluorescent scanning is another factor.

Falls Church, VA – February 18, 2011 - Apollo PACS, Inc., (Apollo), a provider of clinical multimedia solutions, is launching its proven Apollo Enterprise Patient Media Manager (Apollo EPMM®) solution in the “Cloud.”  Apollo will be showcasing their latest service offering for healthcare providers and IT professionals at the Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition at Booth #462 in Orlando, Feb. 21-23, 2011. As a multi-tiered, open-system software solution, Apollo EPMM® helps healthcare institutions improve patient care and operational efficiency by providing specialty-specific workflow enabling simple and secure access to clinical multimedia content.

This cloud-based model enables healthcare organizations of all sizes, as well as individual physicians and allied health professionals, to secure, manage and access clinical multimedia content from their desktop at a low subscription fee that includes full use of the application and all necessary storage. This “pay-as-you-go” model removes the up-front capital expenditures and IT infrastructure typical of large scale information technology purchases and makes Apollo EPMM® an operational budgetary item for its customers. This enables customers to increase storage capacity on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, personnel, or software.

"Easy-to-use workflow and access to clinical multimedia content improves patient care, providing clinicians with visual and/or aural information about a patient and his or her medical history over time. Except for radiology imaging, clinical multimedia is virtually inaccessible and unsecure," said Mark Newburger, CEO of Apollo. "Apollo EPMM® integrates with a multitude of capture devices and information systems to create a single, unified patient multimedia record that is easily accessible, secure, compliant and centrally managed. We are excited to have the opportunity to demonstrate this user-friendly application at HIMSS 2011."

By linking legacy systems across multiple departments and specialties, Apollo EPMM® is capable of locating, managing, and delivering clinical multimedia content to any user or group within the enterprise whether this information is originally stored in silos or a central data store.  Apollo EPMM® unifies and organizes the information and clinical workflow in a manner that is relevant to each specialty within the healthcare enterprise. Apollo currently provides over 40 specialty-specific solutions including Pathology, Dermatology, Gastroenterology, Ophthalmology, Plastic Surgery, and Pediatrics, among others.   Additionally, Apollo EPMM® includes a comprehensive rules-based security and audit trail, further ensuring patient safety and regulatory compliance.

An evolutionary step past traditional Radiology PACS, Apollo EPMM® is an interoperable solution that optimizes existing resources throughout the healthcare enterprise. Apollo EPMM® unifies all patient media without disruption, thereby transforming previously inaccessible multimedia files into a cohesive clinical information solution. The Apollo solution was developed in partnership with The Hospital for Sick Children, Canada's most research-intensive hospital and one of the world's largest and most respected pediatric academic health sciences centers.

Additional benefits of Apollo EPMM® include:
Easy, uniform multimedia access and management
Integrates and links multimedia with wide range of hospital solutions, including information systems and electronic medical records
Ability to capture, manage and archive existing and future multimedia file types
Device-agnostic, open-system approach that enables institutions to leverage legacy resources and adapt to future software and hardware changes
Adaptable to clinician workflows, department-to-department, institution-to-institution

About Apollo
Apollo is a trusted developer of clinical multimedia solutions that boost provider efficiency and improve care by enabling simple and secure management of, and access to, distributed clinical multimedia and data.

Apollo's open-system solutions optimize clinician workflow and efficiency, enabling institutions to make the most of legacy systems and turning multimedia into a unified clinical information solution.  Apollo solutions are assisting clinicians in the delivery of quality healthcare services to patients at leading academic centers, regional medical networks, commercial laboratories, and community hospitals throughout the US and Canada.  For more information visit: http://www.apollopacs.com. Follow us on Twitter and visit us in Booth #462 at HIMSS 2011.