We all know how awesome it is when a method is available that helps reduce time, workload, and costs for all involved parties from the patient to the expert professionals to hospital overhead. Rapid onsite evaluation (ROSE) is one such procedure, making diagnosis much more convenient for everybody involved.
WHAT IS RAPID ONSITE EVALUATION?
A fine needle aspiration (FNA) involves inserting a thin, hollow needle into tissue in an area of interest and removing a small sample for examination. Sampling of tissue with a thin needle instead of more invasive surgery or other methods makes the examination significantly easier on the patient, but also reduces the time and effort invested by the hospital and the healthcare professionals doing the work.
ROSE consists of two phases
- Onsite adequacy (OSA)
- Diagnostics
In the OSA phase the sample is prepared on a glass slide and examined to determine whether the needle captured enough tissue from the right place, and if an accurate diagnosis is possible. This phase has usually been done by the cytopathologist, but in many hospitals a trained technical operator can handle OSA with good results. Once the sample has been agreed to be a valid representation of the area of interest it is handed over to a cytopathologist for determining whether malignant tissue is present and concluding a diagnosis.
A pathologist used to have to be onsite to conduct sometimes both phases of ROSE, but at the very least the diagnosing part. The presence of a pathologist is a bottleneck in ROSE with the ever-increasing workload and there not being enough pathologists to go around for all needs. Telepathology can help solve the problem by making the diagnosis take place digitally online.
ROSE helps reduce time, workload, and costs for all involved parties from the patient to the expert professionals to hospital overhead.
The patient won’t need surgery, including potential follow-up surgeries if the sample wasn’t adequate the first time. The turnaround time for getting the diagnosis is also much faster, shortening the stressful wait for news on their state of health.
When the diagnostics part is done online, the pathologist can be in the next room, at home, or anywhere in the world, removing the need to travel, and enabling them to focus on what they do best: diagnosis.
The hospital and the whole system benefits from a faster process, enabling them to reduce overhead, while being able to treat more patients in the same timeframe.
GRUNDIUM OCUS SCANNERS FIT THE BILL
The Ocus series microscope scanners are designed for remote operation and telepathology. After scanning, a sample is viewed in a web browser, meaning the scanners work on any device with a screen and a modern browser, like Chrome, Safari or Edge. Viewing and moving around a sample and zooming in and out is especially intuitive on a touch screen device like a tablet computer. Designed like a mobile device, an Ocus has a very small footprint, 18 x 18 x 18 cm/ 8 x 8 x 8”, meaning it can find a place in any lab. The small size means it is portable and can be run off a battery pack and wheeled around in a hospital, or it can travel anywhere in a carry-on-sized case.
THE FUTURE OF ROSE
ROSE increases the accuracy of diagnoses, and it makes healthcare better, faster, and more convenient. As laboratory information systems are getting better, hospital IT is advancing, and increasing bandwidths are making online work faster it is clear that digital ROSE is being adopted at more healthcare providers in the foreseeable future. Small and practical equipment like the Grundium Ocus enables this change by lowering the threshold of hospitals and clinics to go digital.
IMAGING MADE PRACTICAL
The Grundium Ocus®40 enables fast, simple and sharp imaging of samples. It’s small footprint means it can find a spot in the most cluttered of labs – often the busiest workspaces are the least orderly! The Ocus®40 is so simple to use anybody can be trained to use it in just 15 minutes. Created by ex-Nokia cameraphone engineers, its patented system takes the sharpest images in the business.
If you are looking for a small footprint and sharp imaging component for your pathology solution or if you want to hear more about how to integrate an Ocus scanner into your system, book a free, non-binding online demo of the Ocus scanners, or just message us with any questions.
