Newsbytes

Unlike with Navify and OncoLens, a key requirement for providers at Avanade’s pilot site was the ability to hold conferences virtually and from any device. The Avanade solution accomplishes this using Microsoft Teams, says Hoglund, which acts as the main repository for storing conference materials. Features of Teams include video conferencing and screen sharing, allowing for virtual meetings with the entire care team or ad hoc discussions between two or more providers. The solution also uses OneNote, which lets caregivers annotate information or record audio comments, as well as the Power BI business analytics tool for tracking case progress from initial diagnosis to treatment decision.

The Avanade solution doesn’t provide EHR integration at the pilot hospital, but adding images, pathology reports, or other relevant patient data to Teams is “as easy as dragging and dropping,” Hoglund says. Providers can add files from their hard drive or upload images directly from a smartphone. And, he adds, because Office 365 is used widely by health care systems, the Avanade solution doesn’t typically require additional technology licenses or information technology department manpower.

“Pathologists and other caregivers are excited about using this solution,” concludes Hoglund, “not only because it lets them participate whenever, wherever, and from whatever device they prefer but also because it is resulting in more comprehensive care for four times as many patients.”

—Charna Albert

Beckman Coulter introduces inventory-management software

Beckman Coulter has released its cloud-based DxOne Inventory Manager software, the latest offering in its DxOne portfolio of clinical information management tools.

“DxOne Inventory Manager eliminates the administrative aspects of supply management by automating the recording, tracking, ordering, and monitoring of consumables,” Erik Johnson, vice president and general manager of workflow and informatics at Beckman Coulter, said in a press release.

Users of the software can manage the inventory process in three steps: click a button to accept orders, deplete an item to update supply status automatically, and confirm a system-generated reorder. Technologists can track products by name, lot number, and location, and be alerted to low supplies. The system also features alerts to ensure consumables are used on a first-in, first-out basis.

Beckman Coulter, 800-526-3821

New platform tracks infectious disease outbreaks worldwide

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have announced the soft launch of IDseq, an open-source, cloud-based analysis platform for tracking infectious disease outbreaks anywhere in the world to advance health care globally.

The tool, which is an outgrowth of a research project conducted in the UCSF lab of Joseph DeRisi, PhD, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, rapidly combs through metagenomic data to identify samples containing bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites and creates an actionable report based on the findings.

The IDSeq open-source software has been released, but the IDSeq service is still in development, according to a press statement from the nonprofit Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which, along with the CZI, was formed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, MD. The Biohub and CZI plan to make the service available to partner organizations within the next year and more broadly in the future.

To support these efforts, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it will provide funding for IDseq to global health care workers via its Grand Challenges Explorations Initiative. Awardees will receive molecular biology and bioinformatics training, access to the IDSeq platform, and the equipment and supplies necessary for them to immediately begin work in their countries.

“What we learn from putting the technology into the hands of front-line professionals will inform next-generation preparedness, helping direct investments in upstream discovery platforms toward novel vaccines and other previously unanticipated interventions,” Chris Karp, director of discovery and translational sciences at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said in the press statement.

In a recent pilot project, IDseq identified the mosquito-borne viral chikungunya disease in the spinal fluid of patients at a pediatric hospital in Bangladesh. “Based on this information, follow-up testing identified additional cases of neuroinvasive chikungunya from the same time period that were previously labeled mystery cases,” according to the Biohub press statement.

“It was eye-opening,” said Senjuti Saha, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Child Health Research Foundation, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. “Chikungunya was previously thought to be neuroinvasive only in very rare instances. But the data from IDseq suggested otherwise—it helped shed light on what were otherwise mysterious brain infections. This will help inform policymakers and initiate appropriate evidence-based case management.”

The CZ Biohub is an independent nonprofit medical research organization based on a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and the University of California, San Francisco. The CZI is a philanthropic organization that brings together engineering, grant making, investing, and policy and advocacy work.

Sophia Genetics partners with Paragon Genomics

Sophia Genetics reported that it will incorporate Paragon Genomics’ CleanPlex next-generation sequencing target enrichment technologies into the Sophia AI artificial intelligence platform.

CleanPlex is a proprietary highly multiplexed NGS target enrichment technology that allows a large number of targets to be interrogated rapidly via a streamlined workflow. It is provided as ready-to-use and custom NGS panels.

Integrating CleanPlex with the Sophia AI platform provides “a comprehensive and standardized solution for accurate genomic detection and characterization of all types of tumor alterations in a single test,” according to Sophia Genetics.

Paragon Genomics, 510-363-9918

Dr. Aller teaches informatics in the Department of Pathology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He can be reached at raller@usc.edu. Hal Weiner is president of Weiner Consulting Services LLC, Eugene, Ore. He can be reached at hal@weinerconsulting.com.