A couple of weeks ago, it was announced  that Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (a member of the Roche Group) would acquire BioImagene for $100+ Million.  BioImagene is a leader in the field of digital pathology and workflow analysis.  Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to visit for a few minutes with some members of the BioImagene team including CEO Dr. Ajit Singh at the Dark Report’s Executive War College in New Orleans.  Dr. Singh is a dynamic guy who seemed to enjoy discussing the organization’s technology and mission.  He gave an interesting talk on the disruptive nature of digital pathology.  If you have a few minutes, you should have a look at the presentation deck Dr. Singh talked from…digital imaging/ and anatomic pathology’s care delivery model.
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So, what does this acquisition mean for the progression of[...]

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Even though the movement of health data is becoming more digitized and shared electronically, one of the main distribution channels for lab results is still the classic faxsimile.  The reality for many labs is that this is how most lab results are communicated to referring physicians.  Conversations with pathology labs around the country reveal issues with faxing reports, and ways to improve their distribution channels to service their clients (referring physicians, hospitals, etc.) better.  Following are some of the highlighted points:
Too much staff time on manual faxing processes
Want to increase efficiency by automating
Scalability issues with faxing causing lags
Ability to deliver lab reports instantly
Lots of service calls
Ability to provide more self service and higher client satisfaction
Standalone distribution  mechanism
Want more integrated distribution options

All of these items went into the development of ReportPath, Pathagility’s lab-to-physician product.  Our on-demand faxing capability is[...]

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We discussed “partnering with your competition” in a post a few months ago and thought it made sense to follow up on the topic after moving further down this path ourselves.�
We (Pathagility) serve pathology laboratories and their healthcare partners (referring physicians, hospitals, etc.) with our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.  A lot is going on in this market.  As our population ages and baby boomers need more medical attention, the workload for pathologist and labs is increasing dramatically.  At the same time with the new health reform, it appears that their reimbursement is actually on the decline.  Combine that with the movement of their clients (referring physicians, hospitals, etc.) to EMR systems – a lot is expected of them.  By the way, at least 70% of patient data in an EMR[...]

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FileMaker Pro is an easy to use, flexible database tool that is quite popular in the pathology laboratory world.  Many database applications (laboratory information systems or LIS) for this market have been developed due to cost factors and ease of deployment especially if the lab has limited IT resources.  FileMaker Pro will continue to be popular for sometime with smaller volume pathology labs, but what happens when scalability needs increase?
Following are some drivers for migrating to a more enterprise level database solution:
          simultaneous user limitations
          limited manageability
          lack of built-in database replication
          relatively low performance
At Pathagility, we’ve run into scenarios where laboratories are wanting and needing to scale and provide functionality outside the scope of a FileMaker Pro environment.  One approach that we’ve taken (i.e. implemented at a hospital-based pathology lab) is to  offer a migration plan that[...]

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Came across this post and video about how HL7 works on Twitter by @HL7 and really enjoyed the simplicity of it.  What’s interesting though is that HL7 doesn’t seem to be simple at all.  Please know I’m not saying HL7 isn’t a good thing, because standardization can add to progression.  Also, I’m a business guy and need to leave the details to our technologist, so not sure how much clout I would have even if I did take that stance   With that said, here is my super high level take of HL7.�
HL7 is very broad.  Our company (Pathagility) provides a SaaS platform to pathology labs and their healthcare partners (referring physicians, hospitals, etc.) including interfacing services between the LIS and EMR.  What we’ve seen is of the healthcare provider systems that do[...]

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There is an abundance of focus and energy around the shift to digitizing healthcare.  The government may be the biggest cheerleader and/or bank roller.  Last week, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT posted on its Health IT Buzz Blog a new theme of unity in healthcare emphasizing the fact that it is going to be a huge team effort to make the kind of traction needed for this movement to be a success.�
I am pleased today to announce our new unifying theme that reflects the teamwork taking place across the country: “Connecting America for Better Health.”  This message clearly illustrates one of HITECH’s guiding principles – namely, that we are all in this together.
Since the stimulus HITECH Act of was passed in 2009, how is this movement progressing?
In[...]

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Software pricing – what an interesting science!  So much goes into strategically positioning your software product, platform and/or service in the particular market you are in from a value perspective.  You start by positioning your software business model against competitors – traditional software model vs. SaaS for instance.  In our experience, there is still an educational process when many potential clients are attempting to evaluate “apples-to-apples.”  As discussed in a previous post, an examination of capital expenditures, software update schedules/fees, internal IT support costs,  and platform redundancy need to take place to evaluate the value propositions of the competing systems.
From there, attention turns to functionality and service.  This is where pricing can get even trickier.  One approach is to bundle a lot of functionality/service into the product platform and to market the value of the whole.  The upside to[...]

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Pathagility won a contract with UNC Nephropathology about 18 months ago.  We were chosen because we offered a web-based reporting solution that did not require an overhaul of their existing Filemaker Pro lab system.  Pathagility’s ReportPath gave them the functionality they needed without having to change LIS systems.
One thing UNC Nephropathology is most pleased about a year into production is the reduction in call-backs from referring physicians’ offices.  Prior to ReportPath UNC’s Nephropathology lab was inundated with calls requesting reports be re-faxed to referring physicians’ offices.  Staff time can now be spent on other important lab functions rather than re-faxing reports.  Pathagility’s ReportPath fax engine and on-demand requests give the power to the referring physician and save time and money on both ends.

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Several years ago I worked for a national lab.   Our company’s individual AP labs of different sizes and specialties were sprinkled from coast to coast.  The network functioned with each lab maintaining a considerable amount of autonomy and labs’ LIS systems ranged from antiquated to new and shiny and from home-brew DOS-based to the latest big box flavor-of-the-week technology.
On the sales side, not unlike most other businesses,  acquiring new customers came down to service.  I know our pathologists and lab staff put patients and servicing our referring physician’s practices at the highest priority.  With the adoption of EMR software at the practice level, the normal expectations of service in the lab industry has quickly grown to include connectivity as a must have.  The reaction of[...]

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Today almost every pathology lab director has “interfacing” as a line item on their weekly staff meeting agenda.  As more referring physicians implement EMR systems and ramp up their meaningful use (MU) of these technologies to grab their piece of the Federal Government’s HITECH incentive dollars, the demand for LIS-to-EMR interfacing increases.  Check out a previous post describing the impact on laboratories of EMR adoption and an aging Baby Boomer generation.  The reasons are obvious and growing for why lab system interfacing is such a high priority.�
That leads us to two pain points of lab interfacing – 1) time and 2) money.
First, as a general rule, the Lab-to-EMR interfacing process takes too long.  This is due to a variety of potential issues ranging from the capability (or lack of) of the existing LIS, the interface backlog[...]

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