Federal government proposes new health interoperability rule
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has released the Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Patient Engagement, Information Sharing, and Public Health Interoperability proposed rule.
“The HTI-2 proposed rule is a tour de force,” said Micky Tripathi, PhD, national coordinator for health information technology, in an HHS press statement. “We have harnessed all the tools at ONC’s disposal to advance HHS-wide interoperability priorities.”
The proposed rule’s certification criteria address interoperability between providers and public health agencies and payers, respectively. They focus heavily on the use of standards-based application programming interfaces for improving end-to-end interoperability between data-exchange partners.
HTI-2 also proposes implementing technology and standards that build on the HTI-1 final rule, centering on such areas as the capability to exchange clinical images, such as x-rays, and additional support for multi-factor authentication. It too requires adopting United States Core Data for Interoperability version four by Jan. 1, 2028 and establishing additional Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement governance rules.
The HTI-2 proposed rule was expected to be available for public comment by CAP TODAY press time.
CSS adds efaxing to laboratory system
Computer Service and Support has released efaxing functionality for its Avalon laboratory information system. The cloud-hosted feature allows users of Avalon to send and receive faxes from any location with an Internet connection.
CSS, 800-336-4277
Proscia grows business and reports survey findings
The digital and computational pathology solutions provider Proscia grew its clinical customer base by more than 100 percent in the one-year span of June 2023 to June 2024, the company announced.
“Proscia’s momentum comes as digital pathology experiences a new surge in global demand,” the vendor reported. “With its Concentriq software platform, Proscia enables laboratories to fully leverage their data while optimizing operations and laying the foundation to unlock new insights with AI applications.”
Proscia also announced that a KLAS Research June 2024 Emerging Company Spotlight report of nine individuals from five institutions using Concentriq digital pathology software indicated that three of the five institutions achieved positive outcomes immediately after beginning to use the product and two achieved positive outcomes within six months. The survey respondents reported that they achieved expected outcomes in such areas as improving turnaround times, modernizing the lab to attract more talent, creating a real-world data archive for fueling research and development, and becoming scanner and artificial intelligence agnostic.
In an unrelated announcement, Proscia reported that it collaborated with Quest Diagnostics and Ibex Medical Analytics on a feasibility study of the impact of the Proscia and Ibex networked pathology solution in a Quest laboratory. “Quest wanted to translate the general findings of the study to understand how these technologies impact lab operations and their effects in a large diagnostic lab setting,” according to the study report.
The study found that using Concentriq Dx’s AI-enabled workflows with Ibex’s AI-powered solution for helping to detect and grade prostate cancer, pathologists were able to sign out 2.9 cases per hour instead of 1.2. The retrospective observational study, which included 180 randomized prostate cases from adults 21 years and older, also found that pathologists are eager to adopt Proscia’s Concentriq platform with Ibex Prostate and that Ibex Prostate is highly accurate in detecting cancer and other pathologies.
The networked solution from Proscia and Ibex is available for research use only in the United States.
Proscia, 215-608-5411
Startup introduces platform for genomic data analysis
The startup Biostate.AI has launched OmicsWeb Copilot, a conversational virtual assistant that specializes in processing RNA sequencing data.
The artificial intelligence-enabled solution is pretrained on more than 5,000 proprietary RNA sequencing data sets with over 15 terabytes of data and is available at no charge to academic and nonprofit organizations.
“Our OmicsWeb platform provides convenient generation, storage, analysis, and visualization of omics data,” the company reported on its website.
The solution analyzes the genomic data that is input and conveys the information generated, such as the characteristics and significance of genes in a data set, via simple prompts. It can also provide visual representations of data in volcano and box plots.
The platform is tailored to users with all levels of genomic data analysis experience, ranging from those who are not familiar with bioinformatics analyses to those that are highly trained in such analyses.
Dr. Aller practices clinical informatics in Southern California. He can be reached at rayaller@gmail.com. Dennis Winsten is founder of Dennis Winsten & Associates, Healthcare Systems Consultants. He can be reached at dennis.winsten@gmail.com.