Stockholm, 2 July 2012

Blekinge and RxEye rationalise pathology workload for the benefit of both the health service and the patients

The County Council, the Blekinge Institute of Technology and RxEye have embarked upon a joint development project to rationalise pathology workloads via digitalisation and remote reviewing of slides.

There is a great lack of pathologists today and with the large number of retirements expected to occur during the next few years, it does not appear that the situation will be improving for 's pathology workplaces. Pathologists traditionally work by examining slides under a microscope, which involves an uncomfortable and ergonomically poor working posture. Many pathologists suffer from back and neck problems because of this. The fact that these are physical slides that have to be examined also imposes geographical limitations on accessing experts within different areas of pathology.

This large lack of resources in pathology contributes to diagnostic imaging often becoming a "bottleneck" in the provision of medical services, resulting in increased costs and long lead times.

On the basis of this situation, the Blekinge County Council, the Blekinge Institute of Technology and RxEye have agreed to initiate a development project with the purpose of developing a new manner of working with digitalised pathology slides in order to enable remote examination of them. With a digitalised slide, the images can be examined on a computer, and with the use of RxEye's technology, they can be examined from a computer anywhere in the world. In addition to improving the working environment for pathologists, this also involves pathology expertise being able to be accessed regionally, nationally and internationally in a simple manner without slides or patients needing to be shipped between the workplaces.

”This will mean that a small laboratory, such as ours in Blekinge, will no longer be susceptible to perturbations in response its times or quality” says Lennart Mellblom of the Blekinge County Council.

Using RxEye's technology that is currently being used in radiology as a basis, this development project will further extend the platform so that pathology workplaces will be able to utilise it in the way they work and thus drive its development within the health service for the benefit of the patients. Experts in interaction design from the Blekinge Institute of Technology will formulate a good and user-friendly workflow. The goal of the development project is to reduce the costs incurred by the Blekinge County Council and to give the pathologists a better working environment via a more flexible organisation, while at the same time providing better care, more correct diagnostics and shorter waiting times for the patients.

”The Blekinge County Council, along with the Blekinge Institute of Technology, are very interesting working partners for us in the area of pathology because they are on the leading edge of the digitalisation of pathology and they possess a vast amount of expertise in combination with the will to improve and further develop their activities. We look forward to improving health services in the area of pathology in the same way that we have done this previously for radiology in other counties,” says Magnus Hök, Managing Director of RxEye. , 2 July 2012

Would you like to know more? Please contact us, we would be quite pleased to be of assistance.

Magnus Hök, Managing Director, RxEye AB, (+46) 070-488 88 01, [email protected], www.rxeye.net

Ulf Hertin, Business Director, RxEye AB. (+46) 070-767 98 00, [email protected], www.rxeye.net

Katarina Sulasalmi, Blekinge Centre of Competence, Blekinge County Council, (+46) 0455-73 78 33

Lennart Mellbom, Senior Physician and Individual medically responsible for pathology, Blekinge County Council, (+46) 0455-734940

Bo Helgeson, Professor of Interaction Design, Blekinge Institute of Technology, (+46) 0455-385 558

RxEye is a rapidly growing Swedish IT company focused on medical technology enabling public sector and private sector enterprises to purchase and/or sell quality-assured and cost-effective examination services in the field of diagnostic imaging. With the use of RxEye, the organisational boundaries are erased - making for better care, faster and more correct diagnostics and access to expertise on a global basis. Simple, flexible and safe.