The Cirdan gang arrived on Fraser island yesterday via a scenic ferry crossing from River Heads yesterday. We  bumped into some of our conference speakers en route, Peter Hamilton and Christine Swarbrick.

The location is stunning and should certainly not disappoint delegates and speakers who are also beginning to arrive.

It is a suitably spectacular venue for the inaugural year of what is to be an annual event.

We are now getting set for the start of the conference this evening.

The talks get underway tomorrow with the first presentation from Anthony Gill about lessons learnt from the international Cancer Genome Consortium and what these will mean for the future of routine clinical care.

From genomics, the next session moves to another key subject for the future of pathology : data analytics and the benefits it can bring to  pathology. We will hear how it can improve  clinician ordering practices, clinical decision making and patient outcomes. The speakers are Ronan Herlihy, Damian Fogarty and Malcolm Pradhan.

The day continues with what lies ahead for pathology imaging. Here we have David Snead on the use of digital pathology in primary diagnosis of histopathology samples. Peter Hamilton will speak on next generation imaging in pathology and if it’s the stuff of dreams or not. Then Christine Swarbrick gives a user’s perspective on pathology imaging systems and a wishlist for the future.

The day closes with a talk on personalised medicine and the future of tissue pathology by Manuel Salto-Tellez.

Tomorrow its equally on topic for the future: pathology informatics. We have Colin Truesdale on bringing everyone together for efficient, better care and the claim that we are now at the tipping point for “virtual medicine”. Next is Peter O’Halloran with an intriguing title of interfacing automation, the internet of things and digital disruption of transfusion laboratories. Last but not least is our own Hugh Cormican on the future of the laboratory information system.

So looking forward to hear and learn from this expert and engaging group of speakers and expand my knowledge of this wonderful field of pathology!

For all delegates and anyone who wants to hear about Pathology Horizons and future Cirdan events, we now have an app which is a neat way to stay informed. Just go to the app store on your mobile phone/device and search for Cirdan, then install the app. Any late changes will be pushed to the mobile app.

Margaret

Peter O’Halloran is the National Blood Authority’s Chief Information Officer and Executive Director of Health Provider Engagement. Peter is responsible for the provision of services to health providers and ICT systems supporting the Australian blood sector.

It is excellent for Pathology Horizons 2015that Peter is joining us and will give a talk entitled “Interfacing, automation and the internet of things – the digital disruption of transfusion laboratories is happening now”.

Named by iTnews as the 2015 Healthcare CIO of the Year, Peter uses ICT systems to reform and reshape the Australian blood sector in a collaborative manner that improves patient outcomes and actually saves money.

In Peter’s view, the digital transformation of transfusion laboratories in Australia is well underway and is transforming the provision of these essential clinical services. His talk will review the transformation of the Australian blood supply chain and show how the ongoing developments of new and existing national systems such as BloodNet and BloodSTAR provide both opportunities and significant challenges.

Peter will also explore how real-time monitoring of the supply chain and transfusions could change provision of pathology services.

Possibly the greatest mystery of all in Peter’s opinion will be discussed: why  is it that Australia has a world-leading solution that enables haemophilia patients in the community to record in real-time their bleeds & infusions and notify their clinicians, but are still unable to comprehensively implement computer assisted transfusions at the bedside in our hospitals ?

Peter joined the Australian Public Service in 2006 after more than a decade designing and managing service delivery in the university and not-for-profit sectors. Currently responsible for ICT, health provider engagement and corporate services, Peter has diverse experience across both service delivery and corporate support.

Joining us to speak at the Pathology Horizons inaugural conference is Ronan Herlihy of the Clinical Excellence Commission and eHealth NSW. Ronan will give a presentation on approaches for data analytics informing clinicians ordering practices.

Ronan’s experience on setting the foundation for Clinical Analytics and Big Data in healthcare fits extremely well with Pathology Horizons as the conference focus is on what may lie ahead in pathology. The date is 5-7 November and the venue is Fraser Island, Queensland.

Ronan’s  talk entitled “Engaging Clinicians with data on their ordering practices” will outline an initial pilot project which has been embraced by a number of local health districts in NSW. Via data extracted from Electronic Medical Records, dashboards can be created to inform and engage clinicians in ordering practices. This presentation looks at the techniques used to create answers for the clinicians questions and discusses the purpose behind the dashboards. It looks at the change management approaches and challenges.

Ronan’s career has been in healthcare at a number of levels including management and eHealth implementation positions.
At an early stage, he recognised the need for information to make the right decisions and this started his journey into health IT. In more recent times he has embraced the concept of delivering value and benefits and had the opportunity to work on several projects from a benefits / value realisation perspective.

For Ronan this is a very exciting and rewarding stage of the information journey, knowing that Analytics will make a significant contribution to improving healthcare.

Join us at Pathology Horizons 5-7 November to hear Ronan and other forward looking speakers give their views on future directions of pathology.

A great way to prepare yourself for what lies ahead in pathology, is Pathology Horizons, a unique conference on developments driving that future.

In this inaugural year of 2015, Pathology Horizons is on 5-7 November and the venue is the stunning Fraser Island, Queensland.

Joining us to speak on pathology’s role in analytics, decision support and precision medicine, is Prof. Malcolm Pradhan, a founding  fellow of the Australian College of Health Informatics.

In the context of pathology’s important role in the management of complex patients, Malcolm will discuss the continuing challenge of the clinical management of pathology. He will highlight the  impacts of inefficient clinical utilization of pathology such as  significant cost, both directly and through increased patient length of stay in hospital.

He will give his views on how clinical productivity and patient safety can be improved through  the effective implementation of integrated clinical decision support (CDS) for pathology results.

Looking further ahead, Malcolm will outline the challenge for health care to develop models that better tailor decisions to the needs of individual patients, and the technology required to achieve this goal. Additionally, through a high level overview of recent advances in technology, such as big data analytics and deep learning, he will propose areas that he believes will be vital in creating a sustainable health care system.

Malcolm is a medical graduate from the University of Adelaide specialising in Health Informatics. With a PhD in Medical Informatics from Stanford University, California, he is also a founding fellow of the Australian College of Health Informatics.

Currently Chief Medical Officer at Alcidion, a leading e-Health company based in Adelaide, Malcolm is also  Adjunct Professor the University of South Australia. At Alcidion, Malcolm has worked on structured electronic medical records, pathology results management, clinical decision support.

You can join us at Pathology Horizons and prepare yourself for the future of pathology.

See www.pathologyhorizons.com.

For more information: email mquinn@cirdan.com.

Now there is just under a month to go to the Pathology Horizons 2015 conference and my first visit to Australia! The programme has come together really well an we have some excellent speakers and insightful presentations.

One such presenter is Dr Damian Fogarty of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. His talk is entitled “Pathology in the era of connected health: linking patients outcomes and data”.

With a passionate interest in the use of routine data for health care improvement and research, Damian has published over 100 papers and 2 book chapters in these areas. He fervently believes that Northern Ireland can make better use of IT systems to help drive high quality care for patients in an efficient and equitable way and also innovate marketable systems for other public sector benefits.

Damian is s a Consultant Kidney Physician in the Regional Nephrology and Transplant Unit, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. He was formerly a Senior Lecturer and principal investigator with Queen’s University Belfast and from 2010-14 was Chairman of the UK Renal Registry. He trained in Belfast and Boston.

His clinical and research interests have focused on diabetic kidney disease, chronic kidney disease epidemiology including meta-analyses and health services research.

Join us at Pathology Horizons to hear Damian’s view on innovative usage of data analytics  to drive high quality health care for patients.

Margaret

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In recent years automated image analysis is an area that has been making significant progress and is gaining momentum in pathology. Major improvements have happened in computing speed, performance and in the algorithms for image analysis. So what are the implications for diagnostics? When, if ever, will automated image analysis become more reliable than the trained eye of a pathologist?

A growing number of studies have been seeking to evaluate the effectiveness of automated image analysis. At Pathology Horizons we will be joining the debate and taking a look ahead to the future of automated imaging. We are delighted to have Professor Peter Hamilton speaking on future possibilities in automated image analysis. He will discuss Next Generation Imaging in Pathology and computer vision (using computers to perceive, process, and understand visual data) and if it is the stuff of dreams or reality?

Peter is Head of the Pathology Bioimaging and Informatics Laboratory within the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology at Queen’s University Belfast.  He is also founder of and VP for Research and Development with PathXL Ltd, a global company specializing in digital pathology software for tumor analysis and biomarker discovery. Recently PathXL was selected as a major partner for a national molecular oncology programme.

Come along to Pathology Horizons 2015 to hear whether next generation tissue imaging technology can radically change how pathology is practiced.

The Cirdan team is delighted to announce that distinguished presenter Professor Manuel Salto-Tellez will be joining us at the Pathology Horizons 2015 conference and will present his views on developments in personalised medicine and the future of tissue pathology. It is a highly relevant subject for the conference theme of “what lies ahead in pathology”.

According to Professor Salto-Tellez, Personalised / Precision Medicine has revolutionized cancer treatment and is also deeply transforming the way that tissue pathology is practiced. Specifically, his talk will review the status of molecular diagnostic tests applicable to tissues and cells. It will also cover the main technical and conceptual areas that, he believes, will be shaping the future of tissue pathology and its integration with the molecular era.

The areas to be included are

• Digital pathology in the pipeline of therapeutic pathology
• Tissue-based NGS and its integration in routine diagnostics
• The promise of liquid biopsy diagnostics and its necessary “partnership” with tissue molecular testing
• Pathology IT, databases and bioinformatics
• The training of future tissue pathologists.

The talk aims to transport attendees though a review process in which the benefits of a solid, integrated, morpho-molecular approach to pathology may become apparent.

Professor Salto-Tellez is Chair of Molecular Pathology at Queen’s University Belfast, Clinical Consultant Pathologist at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and Deputy Director of the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology. He is a well respected researcher and is author or co-author of more than 200 internationally peer-reviewed articles in translational science, molecular pathology and diagnostics. Manuel studied Medicine in Spain (Oviedo), Germany (Aachen) and The Netherlands (Leiden). He specialized in Histopathology in the UK (Edinburgh and London) and in Molecular Pathology in the USA (Philadelphia).

The Pathology Horizons 2015 conference 5-7 November 2015, is an open conference on the future of pathology. The location is to be the world heritage site of Fraser Island, Queensland. More speakers to be announced in the near future!

There are under 3 months to go to the launch of Pathology Horizons 2015 and things are really coming together well. The venue has been decided – it is the stunning Kingfisher bay resort on the world heritage site of Fraser Island.  Attendees will get a really good rate from the hotel for the conference and the lower rate will be honoured even for an extended stay. The area is just so beautiful and there are plenty of great outdoor activities. We are going to have some outstanding speakers – more on that soon!