The Daily Scan

Is Healthcare IT Finally Gaining Momentum?

AlwaysOn wonders Is Healthcare IT Finally Gaining Momentum?

Increasingly, hospitals are turning to technology to drive cost savings and improve efficiencies throughout their organizations. In fact, IDC recently stated that spending on healthcare IT is likely to increase from $15.1 billion to $17.3 billion by 2007—IT spending that is finally on par with other large industries.

Interesting. The "electronic medical record" has been talked about for so long it is almost a mythical legend, but it may finally become real. Of course EMR data must include Pathology images, so instruments to digitize microscope slides are essential :)

APIII - Pattern Recognition with VQ

Aperio attended the 2004 "Advancing Practice, instruction, and Innovation through Informatics" conference held October 6-8 in Pittsburgh. I presented a paper, Pattern Recognition in Virtual Slides with Vector Quantization . The PowerPoint presentation has been posted online (15MB). This presentation explains how a mathematical technique called Vector Quantization (VQ) can be used to perform pattern recognition in virtual slides. VQ is efficient, featureless, and facilitates "find different" as well as "find similar" pattern recognition, making it a promising technique for Pathology.

APIII - Algorithmic Processing of Virtual Slides

Aperio attended the 2004 "Advancing Practice, instruction, and Innovation through Informatics" conference held October 6-8 in Pittsburgh. Dr. Allen Olsen presented a paper, The Algorithmic Processing of Virtual Slides. The PowerPoint presentation has been posted online (8MB). This presentation explains how to perform algorithmic processing on slides which are too large to load entirely into computer memory. This is typically the case for virtual slides used in Pathology, as they can comprise over 20GB of image data.

ScanScope T3 announced!

We are happy to announce - The ScanScope T3! Ta da!

The T3 system, which compliments Aperio’s existing high-throughput T2 system, allows pathologists to create, store, annotate, analyze, share, and conference virtual slide images directly from their desktop. Up to five slides can be loaded simultaneously and scanned fully automatically using easily interchangeable 20x or 40x objectives. The T3 is compatible with Aperio’s open software architecture and supports standard database and image file formats, streamlining integration of the T3 with existing laboratory and data management systems.

And please check this out! A video of a ScanScope T3 in action!

We're very proud of our new baby...

G8 Backs HIV Vaccine Plan

From The Scientist: G8 Backs HIV Vaccine Plan:

"A global program styled on the Human Genome Project gets the nod from world leaders".

Paging Craig Venter.