Olympus has announced the sale of a complete tele-pathology solution to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Cancer Network
The advanced solution combines the unique properties of the Olympus dotSlide and intraScope systems to provide both real-time and virtual slide analysis as well as discussion capabilities.
Multidisciplinary teams (MDT) have become the basis of providing consistent care to patients with diseases such as cancer.
This does mean however, that MDT meetings must take place regularly and can involve a reasonable amount of travel and disruption to workloads.
Furthermore, case reviews and second opinions are conducted between team members even more regularly and often involve the movement of slides and supporting documentation between sites.
This inefficient process does mean that patient's files are at risk of being lost or damaged.
However, this needn't be the case anymore since Olympus has two systems designed to enable all members of an MDT to review the case slides while still being able to remain in their own facility.
Olympus intraScope enables direct 1-2-1 control of a microscope from a remote site.
This means that a slide that needs to be reviewed for second opinion or remote consultation can be loaded at its source site and the microscope fully controlled by a user at a second site.
This enables the reviewer to manipulate the slide and microscope as if they were physically at the instrument.
Olympus dotSlide takes this whole process several steps further forward by scanning entire slides at high resolution and fidelity into a virtual slide file, making them accessible and fully navigable anywhere on the globe.
Users can examine the virtual slide as if they were viewing the original on a microscope.
The dotSlide is the perfect system for all aspects of pathology, meaning that multiple users can review cases at the same time without being near the original slide.
This also enables quicker second opinions and remote consultations, as well as enabling consistent training and discussion.
The dotSlide workstation and server system are equipped for optimal speed, security and performance and enable fully controllable remote access.
The specialised OlyVia software enables pathologists, even those that are not near a dotSlide system, to review and comment on the virtual slide with the additional benefit of being able to add annotations, markers and files (including dictations), which are directly linked to the slide.
Also, the software allows live discussions between any number of people, recording the meeting notes and any additional highlighting marks.
These two systems are designed to work in harmony via a fully automated Olympus BX51 upright microscope.
The BX51 offers the outstanding optical performance needed to make tele-pathology a reality with the added flexibility of still being a fully functional microscope if needed.
