Enhancing Patient Care with Seamless Clinical Collaboration: Streamlining Tumor Boards and MDTs with the Tumor Board Functionality of HALO AP® and HALO AP Dx
Tumor boards, or multidisciplinary team meetings, provide clinicians with an opportunity to work collaboratively and conduct thorough reviews of their most challenging cases. These meetings are crucial to developing personalized treatment plans and ensuring the best possible patient outcomes. Given the involvement of a variety of clinical specialties, it is essential that these meetings are run as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Despite their importance, tumor boards often face challenges due to inefficient workflows during preparation and meetings. These challenges have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted many institutions to shift their meetings online, introducing a new and different set of problems to work around. From coordination and time management issues to inconsistent documentation and difficulties integrating data, every inefficiency in the process impacts patient care. To circumvent this, clinicians and staff often invest significant time and resources into organizing and preparing for tumor boards. Despite the importance of having the most up-to-date information, once preparation is complete, it can be challenging to accommodate last-minute case additions or new results.
The rise of digital pathology has introduced several features that directly address many of these challenges. With a digital system, pathologists can guide other clinicians through cases and whole slide images in real-time, a feature particularly appreciated by specialists and trainees. Advanced digital pathology platforms, like HALO AP® from Indica Labs, offer a complete ecosystem for integrated anatomic digital pathology. These platforms include tools for measurements, counting, notes, consultant comments, and artificial intelligence (AI) and image analysis results, all available at the user’s fingertips.
The CE-IVDR marked HALO AP® and the FDA-cleared HALO AP Dx platforms stand out for their dedicated Tumor Board functionality, which were specifically created to streamline tumor board workflows. By optimizing meeting preparation and facilitating seamless communication among multidisciplinary teams, these platforms play a critical role in improving patient care and ensuring more coordinated treatment planning.
How the Dedicated Tumor Board Functionality in HALO AP® and HALO AP Dx Streamlines and Enhances Multidisciplinary Meetings
The Tumor Board functionality in HALO AP® and HALO AP Dx simplifies case preparation by enabling users to easily create case lists, complete with notes, annotated regions of interest (ROIs), and other clinically relevant highlights. ROIs are presented as snapshots displayed alongside notes, with quick links to dive into full case details when needed. Users can add unique notes and ROIs to each tumor board list that will only appear within the Tumor Board interface, highlighting key details for collaborators while keeping original case notes and measurements just a click away if needed. This feature allows for tailored presentations without disrupting your workflow.
Comprehensive and Secure Data Integration and Accessibility
HALO AP® and HALO AP Dx provide a unified platform for comprehensive and secure access to all patient pathology information, including prior cases, reports, and diagnostic data. Everything users need is readily available in the GLP- and HIPAA-compliant HALO AP platforms. With all data organized within the platform, the time wasted retrieving cases, printing reports, and pulling prior materials is significantly reduced. The flexibility of the digital system means cases can easily be added at the last moment, individually or through the bulk add feature. Case information is updated in real-time, so new results are ready to share the moment they’re uploaded.
Robust Documentation and Record-Keeping
The Tumor Board functionality in each platform automatically generates a detailed audit trail for every tumor board presented, ensuring that all modifications are documented. This is crucial for accurate and reliable case tracking. Prior discussions from past tumor boards can quickly be reviewed, providing context and continuity for ongoing cases. Additionally, the functionality makes it easy to track cases carried over from previous weeks or revisited across multiple meetings. Users can follow the progression of these cases, ensuring that no critical information is lost and that the continuity of patient care is maintained.
Increased Efficiency and Educational Opportunities
With a standardized method of organizing material and all information organized in one platform, efficiency is significantly enhanced and clinicians can be confident that all relevant data is available, leading to more focused discussions and ultimately faster decision-making. The centralization of all data also lends itself to the creation of educational resources for medical students, residents, and fellows. By archiving cases, notes, and relevant materials, clinicians can easily create a database of educational content that includes information from multiple medical disciplines, helping trainees to be better clinicians.
Conclusions
The HALO AP platforms provide a comprehensive solution for tumor boards with their dedicated functionality, transforming these critical meetings into efficient, cohesive, and highly productive sessions. By addressing the challenges of data integration, coordination, and documentation, both platforms ensure that all relevant patient information is seamlessly accessible, enhancing clinical decision-making and ultimately improving patient care.
The benefits of HALO AP® and HALO AP Dx extend far beyond tumor boards. As advanced digital pathology platforms, they enhance diagnostic accuracy and workflow efficiency across the entire anatomic pathology workflow. Both platforms enable precise, quantitative evaluation of whole slide images and facilitate the secure sharing of digital slides and data across teams and institutions, fostering collaboration and consistency in patient care.
To learn more or to try out HALO AP® or HALO AP Dx for yourself, schedule a free demo or reach out to us at info@indicalab.com!
Regulatory Statements:
HALO AP Dx (K232833) is FDA-cleared for primary diagnostic use with the Hamamatsu NanoZoomer® S360MD Slide scanner in the USA. In addition, HALO AP Dx provides built-in compliance with FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and HIPAA.
HALO AP® is CE-IVDR marked for in-vitro diagnostic use in Europe, the UK, and Switzerland. HALO AP® is For Research Use Only in the USA and is not FDA cleared for clinical diagnostic use. In addition, HALO AP® provides built-in compliance with FDA 21 CFR Part 11, HIPAA, and GDPR.