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Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | July 04, 2022
From the July 2022 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“We focus on identifying patients that are eligible for advanced screening, facilitating workflow and driving revenue at busy women’s imaging clinics participating in high risk and genetic testing,” said Daniel Bickford, marketing director for PenRad. “PenGenetics, PenXpress, PenForms and PenConnect are all emblematic of that driving force at PenRad to save lives and optimize client revenue.”
Siemens Healthineers
Last fall, Siemens Healthineers received FDA clearance of its MAMMOVISTA B.smart reading platform and the teamplay Mammo Dashboard tool. The solutions speed up and optimize workflow.
The MAMMOVISTA B.smart reading platform is vendor-neutral and integrates other adjunctive imaging exams, including ultrasound and MR.
The platform is designed to decrease the time needed to load the current and prior examinations, by up to 75%, said Abby Weldon, senior director of women's health at Siemens Healthineers North America. AI-based tools, such as Transpara from ScreenPoint Medical, can be incorporated into the platform to highlight breast tissue abnormalities and provide an exam score indicating the probability of cancerous tissue.
The solution can help radiologists tackle a backlog of exams during the pandemic.
“Elective mammographic screenings were the first ones to get cut when it came to lockdown, but also some of the last ones for patients to revisit again, so any sort of solution that we provide on the vendor side to help backlog is going to be very beneficial,” Weldon said.
Also new is the Siemens Healthineers teamplay Mammo Dashboard, which helps providers monitor the key performance indicators of their mammography exams — including exam duration, compression force, radiation dose and device utilization — to help increase standardization.
“It’s extremely important to make sure that we are standardizing screenings, making sure that if a woman goes to one site and within a healthcare network, she should be getting the same exact quality of exam as if she were to go to another site,” Weldon said. “The goal is to help our customers, especially those that have a fleet of mammography systems, to improve their efficiency and also their quality of care.”
Volpara
Recently, the company updated its cancer risk assessment software platform, Volpara Risk Pathways, with new risk guidelines and has forged partnerships with genetic testing companies so that patient information flows seamlessly to them.
“For patients found to be at high risk, that information could flow automatically to the genetics companies to facilitate discussions for genetic testing,” said Ralph Highnam, chief scientist at Volpara. “Ten to 12% of all breast cancers are genetic, so that connection to the genetics world is very important.”
