Sunquest, Partners HealthCare System and Massachusetts General Collaborate

Sunquest Information Systems, Inc., a provider of laboratory and diagnostic information systems, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Partners HealthCare System, provider of an integrated health care delivery system, announced a collaborative agreement to jointly develop the next generation anatomic and clinical pathology based laboratory information system.

In a release, the group noted that the agreement formalizes the organizations' mutual intentions to create solutions that improve the quality, safety and efficacy of patient care while creating a foundation for clinical and translational research. The agreement will provide for the co-development, distribution and implementation of software designed to provide efficient, flexible work, specimen and information flow; support advanced diagnostic and management methodologies; and accelerate the real world practice of personalized and predictive medicine in pathology.

At the annual APIII (Advancing Practice, Instruction, & Innovation through Informatics) conference in Pittsburgh, Dr. John Gilbertson, Associate Chief of Pathology and Director of Pathology Informatics at MGH, told the audience that tomorrow's laboratories will utilize advanced diagnostic and information management technologies, such as digital pathology, molecular studies, business intelligence and service-oriented architectures to simplify and strengthen the informatics infrastructure. The clinical laboratory of the future, he said, will require re-designed workflow, progressive techniques, and software solutions that fully enable this new diagnostic environment.

"Consolidating anatomic and clinical pathology information systems and incorporating more efficient and increasingly automated workflow, will enable improved and agile working relationships between central information systems, laboratory professionals, pathologists, care providers, and patients," Gilbertson said.

According to John Glaser, CIO of Partners HealthCare, quality pathology information is central to patient safety and the efficient delivery of world class health care. "Pathology systems feed large amounts of quantitative and qualitative data to a wide range of systems from Electronic Medical Records to research repositories," said Glaser. "This collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital focuses on creating advanced pathology system solutions that are consistent with our vision of using information technology as a driver to enable efficient, high-quality health care delivery and enable the delivery of personalized medicine to our patients."

"Technologies that support the vision of a fully automated pathology department, such as advanced sample management, digital image generation and pattern recognition, are advancing rapidly," said Richard Atkin, president and CEO of Sunquest Information Systems, Inc. "This relationship fully leverages the complementary strengths of Sunquest's extensive knowledge of clinical laboratory and diagnostic information solutions with MGH's and Partners HealthCare's superior clinical experience and leading edge research. Together our organizations are committed to co-developing new solutions that will significantly impact not only the discipline of pathology, but also the development of the information systems that support the practitioners and their patients."

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