ConsultConnect for Remote Second Opinions

ConsultConnect is built for leading institutions and pathology organizations that have subspecialty pathology expertise and are keen to expand the global reach of their remote second opinion services and programs.

In a perfect world, every hospital would have a sufficient pool of subspeciality pathology experts who can diagnose every type of cancer, so they can provide the best care for the patients in-house. The reality, however, is that each cancer has many subtypes and an ever-expanding list of features and new findings that decide prognosis and treatment. The kind of expertise required to treat cancer appropriately is not available everywhere, which leads to patients seeking second opinion consultations from the few experts sitting at various locations around the world. Globally, remote consultations are increasingly important for resource restrained countries or locations where pathologists are scarce. Democratizing pathology knowledge is therefore critical to supporting global health initiatives where patients need the expertise and institutions with the expertise have an opportunity to support their pathology colleagues.

Most institutions want to expand their remote second opinion services, and they see digital workflows as a means to provide better care to patients and referring hospitals. However, there are several key barriers to adoption.

1. Most digital pathology solutions are designed for primary diagnosis workflows, where the patient is first registered in the hospital electronic medical record and then in the lab information system, which now has their metadata. PathPresenter has created a remote second opinion-centric workflow that accommodates the fact that digital slides are coming in from other institutions, along with their metadata.
2. Institutions struggle with the expense of digital pathology infrastructure, which includes both upfront implementation fees and ongoing subscriptions. We have removed the upfront implementation fees and subscription fees and replaced them with a minimal annual commitment and simple “per-consult” pricing. Our goal is to transform digital pathology into a profit center for institutions as they expand their global reach.
3. Finally, we are addressing how long it typically takes an institution to scale a digital pathology program. We have done this by streamlining and simplifying the onboarding process, allowing institutions to get up and running with their cloud-based solution in days instead of months.

For referring hospitals that are sending second opinion cases to a consulting institution, it’s all about speed and ease of use. There is no software for the referring hospital to buy. They just need to get onboarded by the consulting institutions, which is accomplished through a browser-based interface. Then the referring hospital uses ConsultConnect to upload the patient’s digital image files and their metadata. ConsultConnect then securely sends the image and data to the consulting hospital where it is accessioned to the subspecialty expert for review.

For patients, ConsultConnect means that patients, through their institution, can gain access to the knowledge of subspecialty experts at leading institutions around the world, which can help them and their doctor validate diagnoses or explore more treatment options in a timely, even life saving manner.

Leveraging AWS’s reliable infrastructure, ConsultConnect is designed to scale as your remote second opinions services expand, creating a seamless, scalable, and cost-effective solution.

Like all PathPresenter software, ConsultConnect is monitored 24/7 by industry-leading security and compliance vendor, Vanta, for HIPAA compliance. PathPresenter security is routinely assessed and validated by our partners, where our security model builds upon many proven technologies to ensure data protection.

In keeping with our streamlined and simplified approach, ConsultConnect is designed to operate without the need for LIS integration at the consulting institution. However, PathPresenter has extensive experience in LIS integration and its own proprietary HL7 engine, and can help institutions integrate ConsultConnect with their LIS.

We are currently making ConsultConnect available to participants in an early access program. We will provide updates on general availability over the coming months.

Yes, even if you already have an existing IMS for clinical case management, you can use ConsultConnect specifically for cases coming from other institutions.

We have strong partnerships with various scanner vendors and a growing network of scanning service providers. Contact us and we can work with you and your referring hospital to find a solution to get them up and running.