To promote the development of the pathology industry in Henan with the latest digital pathology technology, KFBIO has partnered with Henan Telemedicine Center to provide an end-to-end digital pathology solution. It includes the pathology equipment, the Remote Pathology Consultation Platform, and the Joint Laboratory of Digital Pathology and Artificial Intelligence with Intel.

• Background

Henan Telemedicine Center was originally named Henan Remote Consultation Center. In 2010, it was renamed Henan Telemedicine Center with the approval of the Henan Provincial Health Department. It is one of the earliest telemedicine centers established and operated in China.

In 2016, the center set up a comprehensive telepathology consultation platform. Centered with the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, and 19 municipal hospitals as the sub-center, it covers the pathology telemedicine services of 249 primary hospitals, providing comprehensive pathology consultation, quality control, and education services for patients and medical institutions nationwide.

To share high-quality medical services with more people, improve the clinical pathology diagnosis level in primary hospitals, and strengthen the training of pathology diagnosis talents, Henan Telemedicine Center launched the support plan for the remote digital pathology diagnosis development.

Henan Telemedicine Center insists on the principle of high efficiency and low cost. Based on local conditions and needs, the Center implements equipment procurement, software installation, system debugging, and other related work. It ensures the normal operation of the telemedicine network in Henan province and lays the foundation for the connection of the national telemedicine regulation platform and the provincial telemedicine systems.

Based on the actual condition of different hospitals, Henan Telemedicine Center explores a new operation mode to improve the operation efficiency and further improve the entire province’s medical service level. It meets the requirements of the medical and health care reform and ensures the normal operation of public services and provincial medical services.

At present, the ability to diagnose is the key element for the development of primary hospitals. The remote pathology diagnosis system conforms to the general trend of digital pathological diagnosis and telemedicine. It helps primary medical institutions improve the pathology diagnosis level, and thus improve the overall quality of medical service.

• Method
• Pathology Equipment

As an outstanding pathology equipment supplier, KFBIO provided Henan Telemedicine Center with the digital pathology scanning system, the remote pathology consultation system, and system connection and integration services required by the project. KFBIO also leads the overall implementation, training, operation, and maintenance of the project.

KFBIO provides partner hospitals and county telemedicine sub-centers with digital pathology scanning equipment and workstations at more reasonable prices. According to the different needs of hospitals, KFBIO designed customized functions of the remote pathology consultation system and installed pathology equipment.

KFBIO organizes free technology training on digital pathological equipment and system operation techniques for cooperative hospitals and county telemedicine sub-centers. KFBIO also continuously improves the academic and technical level of pathology technicians in primary hospitals with the guidance of professionals.

KFBIO provides remote pathology diagnosis guidance. KFBIO aims to establish a cooperation mechanism, form a regular remote pathology service model, carry out a patient-oriented diagnosis model, and continuously improve the pathology diagnosis capacity of primary hospitals.

• 2. Remote Pathology Consultation Platform

KFBIO remote pathology consultation platform also fully considers requirements of data storage, network, audio and video connection, information security, offline business tracking, etc. The platform helps hospitals share pathology resources and support each other. It effectively improves the regional pathology capacity and puts the grading diagnosis mode into practice.

Through network data transmission, the KFBIO digital pathology remote consultation platform can help experts, cooperative medical institutions, and patients in different regions to consult slides online at the same time. It also has the functions of browsing, editing, and managing digital slides.

It has many advantages, including real-time consultation, quality control data monitoring and management, remote real-time guidance for sampling, a three-level audit consultation mechanism, HIS interface customization, interconnection, integration of MDT multidisciplinary consultation, hierarchical diagnosis and treatment architecture. It supports synchronous browsing of slides and signatures of experts in different places. It’s available on PC, iPad, and mobile phone.

At the same time, the security of the system is guaranteed completely. It effectively realizes network isolation to guarantee network security. An independent external network is accessed and does not interfere with the original hospital information system. The user data is encrypted to ensure customer information security and privacy. Requests, system maintenance and upgrade, and system operation information are all recorded. It standardizes filtering, merging, and warning processing, and implements system log auditing.

• 3. Joint Laboratory of Digital Pathology and Artificial Intelligence

Henan People’s Hospital, Intel, and KFBIO partner to build a digital pathology and artificial intelligence laboratory. It aimed at building a higher level of innovation and development platform, improving the pathology diagnosis quality, cultivating advanced professional talents, and solving major requirements such as the pathology regional integration, intelligent health care, etc.

Centering on the pathology big data cloud platform, the Joint Laboratory of Digital Pathology and Artificial Intelligence manages and controls all kinds of business, equipment, and consumables. It unites the entrances, connects various subsystems, and achieves the goal of completing the whole workflow management of the pathology department on one platform. And finally, it aims to form a community of intelligent digital pathology with Henan Provincial People’s Hospital as the center, covering 120+ cooperating medical institutions.

Through this cooperation, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Intel, and KFBIO will make full use of the resources of experts, technologies, and equipment. It will accelerate the development of digital pathology and apply the advanced pathology technologies into real practice, and accelerate the development of China’s pathology industry.

• Result
• 1. Guaranteed working efficiency: The combination of hardware and software improves the working efficiency of pathology diagnosis. KFBIO provides the end-to-end digital pathology solution covering the whole pathology workflow. Every equipment and system is redesigned for different customers according to different needs.
• 2. More consultation cases and better economic effect: At present, the platform has more than 12,000 consultation cases per year. All consultations are provided for public welfare. It’s an important part of the medical benefit project in Henan Province.
• 3. Less repetitive work assisted by AI: Information management is comprehensively improved. And digital pathology, remote pathology, artificial intelligence, and sample tracking are fully integrated. Pathology artificial intelligence algorithm is used for initial screening to improve diagnostic efficiency. The Artificial Intelligence Cervical Cancer Screening System can achieve a sensitivity of 0.982 and a consistent rate of 0.76 between the AI diagnosis and TCT manual diagnosis results.
• Conclusion

The application of the KFBIO end-to-end digital pathology solution in Henan province has achieved great success. It’s a rare example to learn how digital pathology equipment, telepathology platforms and AI technology can be widely put into practice in hospitals. KFBIO is always devoted to providing the most advanced products and the most satisfying services. The future is now. Let’s partner to embrace digital pathology together.