Path lab volume up – efficiency needed

The article Good News for Anatomic Pathology Laboratories: Tissue-Based Diagnostics Market Predicted to Double by 2016 published this morning by Dark Daily, is another indicator that the Anatomic Pathology market is going to see increased volumes.  Couple this with health care reform that may have an adverse affect on lab reimbursements, EFFICIENCY will be key in surviving and thriving during this…

Recent Digital Pathology Acquisition

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…

Faxing still a reality in the EMR era.

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,…

Enemies & Friends

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…

When you’ve outgrown FileMaker Pro

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…

Simplicity of HL7

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…

EHR Progress?

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…

Software Pricing Dialogue

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…

Fast, Cost-Effective Interfacing

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…

Are all healthcare SaaS platforms created equally?

We’ve already discussed the benefits of SaaS in healthcare especially those applications that provide opportunity for customization.  But are all SaaS platforms equal?  No…you guessed it… they certainly are not.  In choosing a SaaS platform in healthcare, there are several criteria that need to be examined.  The check list should including the following at a minimum: Redundancy –…