The Paris-Sud AP-HP Hospital Consortium: How Digital Pathology Transforms Everyday Laboratory Practices

The Paris-Sud University Hospital Consortium is comprised of three hospitals: Antoine-Béclère, Bicêtre and Paul-Brousse. These hospitals provide a wide variety of specialized medical and surgical services for children and adults, with a total of 2035 in-patient beds and 197 day case beds. These hospitals are major players in the innovation of patient services in the south of the Ile-de-France, and are benchmark centres for the treatment of numerous conditions, specifically in the fields of hepatobiliary medicine, gynaecology, nephrology, neurology, immunology and haematology. In tandem with these care services, the Hospital Consortium is also a leading training and research centre.

A highly-valued migration process

A faithful client of TRIBVN, the Paris-Sud Hospital Consortium completed its migration to CaloPix 3.0.0 in the Spring of 2015. We now have feedback from this major development in imaging practices. Users of the new version of this software have been impressed by both its performance and its ease of use. This software has allowed the unification of pathological imaging services in all three hospitals, together with the development of applications and exchanges. Thanks to its redesigned viewer and workflow functions, CaloPix is not only fast, but is also more simple and more efficient. According to Professor Catherine Guettier, Head of the Pathological Anatomy & Cytology Service of the Bicêtre/Paul Brousse Hospitals: “This migration to CaloPix 3.0.0 has delivered genuine added value to our services”. She goes on: “Whether in macroscopy, the conduct of remote frozen section examinations or the use of virtual slides, CaloPix is an everyday tool for the medical team. The straightforward incorporation of macroscopic photographs into reports is also highly appreciated by our clinical colleagues”. This migration has been undertaken in the context of the pooling of the information system at Hospital Consortium level, between the Paul Brousse and Bicêtre Hospitals on one side, which have had a single Pathological Anatomy service since 2008, and the Antoine Béclère Hospital on the other. Eric Adnet, Technical Director of the Information System Division of the Paris-Sud Hospital Consortium, was responsible for the management of this project, assisted by Eric Poullier, manager of Pathological Anatomy in the AP-HP CCS-SI (patient information system centre of expertise). He acknowledges that “the deployment of this solution was straightforward, with the merging of databases and effective integration in the Diamic LMS”.

Remote frozen section examinations

The Paris-Sud Hospital Consortium has deployed a remote frozen section examination solution in order to obviate the movement of practitioners between the Paul Brousse and Bicêtre Hospitals, thereby saving time. In the Paul Brousse Hospital, operational functions have been entirely assumed by a technician, and frozen section examinations are conducted by telemedicine. Using the Macro solution by TRIBVN, the practitioner can guide the technician in the sampling process. The slide produced is then scanned and undergoes direct remote interpretation in CaloPix. Diagnoses are transmitted in the OR and entered in Diamic. Catherine Guettier is pleased to point out that “This practice has permitted the reorganization of work between the Paul Brousse and Bicêtre hospitals, thereby freeing-up practitioner time. Since this solution has been in place, over 500 examinations have been completed, with response times of the order of 30 minutes – these times are entirely acceptable for surgeons”.

CaloPix Pocket revolutionizes the sharing of anatomopathological images in the hospital

The CaloPix Pocket full web application allows a user to consult their images remotely on a computer or a tablet, using a simple web browser with no pre-installation. The application incorporates a search tool and a web viewer, allowing the rapid retrieval by the user of images and information for a given patient or examination, in an entirely secure and traceable arrangement.

This solution is specifically used during staff consultations or multi-disciplinary consultation meetings outside the pathology service, during which the sharing of macroscopic images and virtual slides is particularly useful. “Pocket increases our efficiency and saves time: we no longer need to prepare case images in PowerPoint beforehand, and exchanges with clinicians are enhanced”.

Research works

In collaboration with the Paris-Sud Faculty of Medicine, the Hospital Consortium pursues an active research policy, which is specifically structured on the basis of INSERM units and research platforms. CaloPix is used by a number of research teams in quantification operations. For example, the Paul-Brousse U1193 INSERM team regularly uses CaloPix in its research work on hepatic pathology. Hélène François, research physician at the combined health research unit UMRS 1197, acknowledges that “the use of image quantification in CaloPix has allowed the acceleration and standardization of our research work in renal fibrosis”, and that “the renal fibrosis software has been validated in fundamental research, and has been the subject of a recent publication (Lecru et al. Kidney international) and of a thesis on the clinical evaluation of renal fibrosis”. Since its deployment, the CaloPix solution has been used for the analysis of fibrosis slides, bio-markers and TMAs in the context of research works, and has been an indispensable tool for a number of scientific publications.

About TRIBVN

TRIBVN has acquired significant expertise and technical know-how in the medical imaging field in the past 20 years. Its products are mainly used in laboratory and clinical imaging in the fields of oncology, neurology and dermatology. TRIBVN designs and provides solutions to acquire, manage, process and share images for cell and tissue diagnosis.

TRIBVN equips hospital and private health organizations as well as university and private research centers with its solutions.

Its wide range of products and services provides solutions to assist doctors and researchers in their diagnostic decision-making and their scientific evaluation, for the well-being of patients.

Media contact

Clara Mercon: cmercon@tribvn.com

Source: TRIBVN