Please Join Definiens with special guest Dr. Roscoe Atkinson, M.D. from Clarient Inc. for a free webinar on May 11th, 2011 @ 11am EST:

Clarient PATHSiTE Scope IA: Improving Patient Care – Powered by Definiens.

Topics that will be covered:

- The evolution and development of Image Analysis and Scope IA at Clarient Inc.
- Clarient’s utilization of Definiens algorithms and technology
- How Clarient’s application of Scope IA and Definiens improves patient care

Speakers:

- Dr. Roscoe Atkinson, M.D. – Pathologist, Clarient
- Peter Duncan – Director, Marketing and Business Development Translational Research, Definiens

Title:    Clarient PATHSiTE Scope IA: Improving Patient Care – Powered by Definiens.
Date: Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/173191610

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Despite mentioning MikroScan 3 times during the month of November, I inadvertently omitted mentioning them in my Year in Review post at the end of December.  While details began to come out about the size, capacity and price of the device, I did not know what scan times or image quality were and how they compared with established vendors or higher throughput devices. 

Last month someone attending the USCAP meeting sent me a text that read "They are 3 deep in the MikroScan booth".  The images I was told were of high quality with ease of use on the scanner and viewer side. 

I had to see for myself.  After accepting my offer to scan my slides complete with cracked cover slips, air bubbles, pen marks, fingerprints and coffee stains along with the tincture of time for some of the slides, the challenge was on. 

A few days later with remote viewing through join me, a simple and easy application,  I got what one would expect - a digital reproduction of every cell and the flaws on/in the slide.  Despite intentionally using non-ideal slides, the images were excellent and the artifacts, while present were no more a distraction or deterrant to viewing the slides than if I were at a microscope. 

What does this mean for the digital pathology user and laboratories?

For use cases that have a limited number of slides in an environment with limited space available (i.e. pathologist office, frozen section, cytology cart) this may just be what the doctor's doctor ordered for a rapid, reliable whole slide image that can be viewed for solo pathologist support, remote frozen section consultation between pathologists or immediate FNA interpretations.

This is not to suggest that it eliminates devices that process 4,5 or 300 or more slides with workflow and image managment software capabilities from the respective manufacturer.  I am suggesting users may need both. 

One device for the 1 or 2 slide frozen section or FNA case or limited consultation within arm's reach of a pathologist or technical assistant and a larger capacity device for large cases to be signed out, tumor boards, image analysis and archiving, likely to be centrally located where there is the greatest volume of slides and pathologists.

For more information check out http://www.mikroscan.com.

• Submissions cannot have been presented, published, or submitted for presentation or publication elsewhere.
• All abstracts must be submitted electronically by April 29, 2011. Late abstracts, or those received by any means other than the ASCP abstract submission website will not be reviewed by ASCP.
• Abstracts must be submitted in English. Submitting an abstract does NOT guarantee its acceptance at the 2011 ASCP Annual Meeting/WASPaLM XXVI World Congress. ASCP will provide notification of final status to all abstract submissions by July 1, 2011.
• Particular attention should be given to products or equipment that bear registered trade names. Provide the company name and its city and state address parenthetically following the first mention of the product.
• References should not be used. No charts, figures, or tables should be used.
• Notice of acceptance will be sent via e-mail only. When setting up your user account, please use all fields for author and administrative support so that you will receive notices in a timely manner.
• An initial confirmation e-mail will inform you of the receipt of your submission.
• Authors will be notified in late summer of their status as a finalist in a poster competition, selection for an oral platform presentation, or poster session day and time assignment.
• All submitted abstracts will be peer reviewed. Refer to the “Abstract Submission Guidelines” for grading criteria and other details of the abstract submission process.
• For further information please e-mail us at abstracts@ascp.org or call 312-541-4943.

You may download a PDF copy of the abstract submission guidelines by clicking here.

30 UCLA Sub-Specialty Pathologists Available to Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University

Vista, CA – April 26, 2011 - Aperio, the global leader in providing digital pathology solutions that improve patient care, today announced that its digital pathology system is being used to support subspecialty pathology consultations between Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center (UCLA) in Los Angeles, Calif., and Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University, (ZHU) a 2,000-bed top-ranked hospital located in Hangzhou, China. 

UCLA has a pool of more than 30 sub-specialty experts in pathology that are available to provide remote medical consultation services to China for unusual and complex cases. Aperio’s patented scanning technology allows pathologists at ZHU to capture a digital slide image at very high resolution of the entire tissue sample on a glass slide and share it with pathology experts at UCLA in a secure web-based environment. More than 100 cases have been remotely reviewed to date. The Aperio digital pathology system facilitates the ability to bring high-quality, expert pathology services to China, significantly improving intra and inter observer agreement and ensuring effective treatment to improve patient care. 

“UCLA and ZHU selected the only true global leader in digital pathology that can deliver a complete remote consultation capability today,” said Dirk G. Soenksen, CEO of Aperio. “Aperio is helping healthcare organizations of all types deliver sub-specialty pathology services via online access to topnotch virtual pathologists. Pathology expertise is just a mouse click away anywhere in the world to help ensure the best pathology services possible in a fast and cost-effective way.” 

Use of Aperio’s patented ScanScope® scanners, Spectrum™ image management (PACS) software and remote viewing technology allows U.S. healthcare companies to compete at an international level, facilitating real-time, high performance access to high-resolution digital slide images. 

Jonathan Braun, M.D., Ph.D., chair of pathology and laboratory medicine, and professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, stated, “Digital pathology allows UCLA to offer the advanced skills of our sub-specialty pathologists to China in real time when a specific type of pathology expertise is needed quickly on a difficult or complex case. Our collaboration illustrates how integral pathology is to patient outcomes. Pathologists have become influential partners in treatment. Digital pathology dramatically enhances our ability to provide patient-centered care.” 

UCLA and ZHU pathologists also participate in frequent digital slide conferences using the Aperio system to review individual cases. Pathologists can view annotations on the digital slide image created by other reviewers, while simultaneously adding annotations for others to see. A common cursor superimposed on the digital slide is visible and can be manipulated by all conference participants. The hospitals are also conducting multi-disciplinary conferences, where experts across various disciplines (oncology, radiology, surgery) convene to discuss difficult cases. 

With more system installations than all other digital pathology vendors combined, Aperio is the true global leader and reliable choice for world class digital pathology solutions. The company boasts a global installed base of more than 800 systems in over 30 countries, including more than 500 systems in hospitals and reference laboratories, the 13 largest pharmaceutical companies and a multitude of biotechnology and government organizations.  

We are seeking exhibitors for the Pathology Informatics 2011 conference that will take place at the Wyndham Hotel in Pittsburgh on October 4-7, 2011. This conference resulted from a merger of two previous pathology informatics conferences, Lab Infotech Summit and APIII. The inaugural merged conference was held in Boston last September. A total of 41 exhibitors participated in that event with about 250 paid registrants in attendance.

via labsoftnews.typepad.com

On April 7, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") issued its proposed regulations covering Accountable Care Organizations ("ACOs"). When adopted in final form, this rule will implement Section 3022 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which requires CMS to establish a Shared Savings Program by January 1, 2012. These proposed regulations are the first in a series, and set forth the basic eligibility requirements for ACOs to participate in the Shared Savings Program; quality of care and other reporting measures; the methodology for assigning Medicare beneficiaries to ACOs; the payment methodologies under the Shared Savings Program; monitoring of ACOs for compliance with applicable criteria; and the sanctions for non-compliance. Comments regarding the proposed regulations are due by June 6, 2011. This alert is intended to provide only a high level summary of the proposed regulations.

The proposed regulations define an ACO as a legal entity recognized to conduct business under state law, with a governance structure that will enable it to receive and distribute shared savings, establish and report compliance with the ACO quality and reporting requirements, and perform other tasks set forth in the regulations. An ACO may be established by: (a) professionals in group practices, (b) networks of individual practices, (c) ventures between hospitals and professionals, (d) hospitals who employ professionals, and (d) critical access hospitals. Other health care providers and suppliers may participate in an ACO, but they cannot establish an ACO. It is important to note that primary care professionals (which include professionals in the specialties of general practice, family practice, internal medicine or geriatric medicine) can only be ACO participants in a single ACO, whereas other types of providers, such as specialist physicians, may participate in multiple ACOs.    

Click here for full text of the alert.

Courtesy of McDonald Hopkins

In case you missed it -- Pat Foley call for Game 6 Blackhawks vs. Canucks.  No better announcer in hockey. 

Best thing I have heard all year -- "Game 7 will be played on Tuesday night."

Aperio continues to add to its IP portfolio with streamlined workflow patented technology.

Creation of complete digital slide image file - during scanning - results in fastest scanners, streamlines workflow and simplifies IT

VISTA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aperio, the global leader in providing digital pathology solutions that improve patient care, announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued the company patent No. 7,826,649 entitled, “Data Management in a Linear-array-based Microscope Slide Scanner.”

The ‘649 patent describes techniques invented by Aperio for efficiently processing large image files — during the scanning process — to create a single high-quality digital slide image. The ability to create a single digital slide, including image compression, during the scanning process results in faster overall scanning and streamlines digital pathology workflow.

“This patent highlights our ability to create a single digital slide image during the scanning process, which is why our scanners continue to be the fastest on the market,” commented Dirk G. Soenksen, CEO of Aperio. “Our sub-95 second scan time includes all steps required to create a single digital slide image file by the scanning instrument. This patent requires others to divide the scanning process between the scanning instrument and a dedicated server, and to post-compress the imagery data on the server. Doing so takes much longer than their advertised scanning time, complicates the workflow, and requires moving and storing gigabytes of imagery data.”

Aperio has the highest throughput scanners available today. The company’s family of ScanScope® scanners are based on line-scanning, which has become the standard for scanning performance and image quality in the digital pathology industry. Line scanning rapidly produces seamless digital slide images with unsurpassed image quality, and is critical to a pathologist’s ability to make informed diagnoses and prognoses of diseases.

The patent strengthens Aperio’s comprehensive intellectual property portfolio comprising more than 80 issued and pending patents world-wide, and provides the company with ownership of key innovations that address critical pathology imaging needs.

With more system installations than all other digital pathology vendors combined, Aperio is the true global leader and reliable choice for world class digital pathology solutions. The company boasts a global installed base of more than 800 systems in over 30 countries, including more than 500 systems in hospitals and reference laboratories, the 13 largest pharmaceutical companies and a multitude of biotechnology and government organizations.

About Aperio

Aperio is the leading provider of digital pathology solutions in hospitals, reference labs, and pharmaceutical and research institutions across the world. Today, our affordable and complete product portfolio improves patient care by enhancing quality assurance, delivering more efficient workflows, facilitating access to new and more targeted therapies, and improving pathologists’ skills via lifelong education. Our comprehensive product line features our ScanScope® scanners, Spectrum™ image management (PACS) software, SecondSlide® slide sharing service for pathology, and image analysis tools and services. Aperio’s products are FDA cleared for specific clinical applications, and are intended for research and education use for other applications. For clearance updates and more information please visit http://www.aperio.com.

Courtesy of FierceMobileHealthcare:

The Department of Veterans Affairs this week awarded contracts to six IT vendors to run its massive (and growing) telehealth program for the next five years. The winners: Authentidate, American Telecare, Cardiocom, HealthHero Network, Visual Telecommunication Network/ViTelCare, and Viterion TeleHealthcare.

The prize: About $1.38 billion in VA telehealth contracts. The individual vendor contracts run anywhere from $150 million to $372 million over the five-year period, VA officials tellFierceMobileHealthcare. That total isn't guaranteed, though. Each vendor starts out with a single-year contract, which is renewable in each of the following four years.

What's really interesting: The VA's clear leap into telehealth. The smallest of the new contracts--$150 million for Viterion Tele-Healthcare--is just shy of the agency's entire telehealth budget of$163 million last year. It is somewhat on trend, though, given that the 2010 budget was a 50 percent jump over 2009 spending.

The contracts do cover both traditional video-based telehealth systems, according to Authentidate officials. They also cover sensor-based remote monitoring systems in patient homes.

To learn more:
- read Authentidate's press release
- check out MobileHealthWatch's coverage

Related Articles:
VA's telehealth budget may double, but strategic questions linger
Veterans using mobile devices for follow-up care
Telehealth prevents ICU deaths, VA research shows

How to build teamwork, boost productivity, and enhance harmony
in your lab’s multi-generational workforce

YOUR PRESENTERS: Jerad M Gardner, M.D., Chair, CAP Resident Forum and Fellow, Soft Tissue Robert E. Petras, M.D., FCAP, FACG, Managing Director, Ameripath, Inc. Justin M. Clark (Moderator), Director of Operations, THE DARK REPORT

LIVE Webinar April 28 – Register Now!

Early in their four-year residency programs, pathology residents should start searching for the perfect fellowship, and employers should emphasize the need for residents to acquire subspecialty expertise before they begin a career in pathology and laboratory medicine.

On Thursday, April 28, 2011, the Pathology Residents Education Program (PREP) has a timely learning opportunity designed to help pathology residents identify, apply, and interview for the perfect pathology fellowship. During this 50-minute webinar, you’ll learn precisely what it takes to demonstrate your skills and competencies—and then nail down an offer for the ideal pathology fellowship.

Our first speaker, Robert Petras, M.D., is internationally known for his subspecialist expertise in gastrointestinal pathology. Dr. Petras accepts fellows and will give you an insider’s perspective on all aspects of the fellowship experience. He has been active in promoting fellowship programs at the national level and has invaluable insights into how you can stand out as an applicant.

You’ll also hear from Jerad M. Gardner, M.D., Chair of the CAP Resident Forum and Fellow, Soft Tissue Pathology at Emory University. From the pathology resident’s perspective, Dr. Gardner offers practical information about the do’s and don’ts of submitting fellowship applications, handling the interview process, and responding appropriately to post-interview communications.

This webinar is perfect for first-, second- and third-year pathology residents who want to identify and obtain the ideal pathology fellowship. Pathology residency program directors and chairs of pathology will also find this information invaluable, and will want to make it available to their residents.

Pathology fellowships aren’t easy to get. To get a fellowship offer from your first choice, it’s essential for you to understand how to distinguish yourself from the other applicants. Find out what it takes to get a fellowship in either an academic or non-academic setting, including how to select a subspecialty, how to become a competitive candidate, and how to navigate the fellowship application process.

You’ll also learn about the fellowship interview and selection criteria and what you can do to prove you’re the best candidate for the position. We’ll even prepare you for handling an offer of acceptance—and what to do if you’re turned down.

If you’re a resident looking for a fellowship opportunity, this session will give you a head start by taking you through the application process and clearing up some of the more confusing aspects before you begin. Drs. Petras and Gardner offer insights, advice, and recommendations for conducting a search to find the best pathology fellowship in a non-academic setting.

Ask your chief resident or residency program director to register your residency program for this information-packed 50-minute webinar, “The Essential Guide to Achieving the Perfect Pathology Fellowship: Useful Advice and “Must Do’s” for First-, Second- and Third-Year Residents,” on Thursday, April 28, 2011.

And don’t forget the question-and-answer session at the end of this conference. It’s your opportunity to get answers to specific questions about how to apply for a academic or non-academic pathology fellowship.

THE DARK REPORT WEBINAR AT A GLANCE

PLACE: Your computer or your residency program’s conference room

COST: $249 per download *Add 30 days of post-conference online access to the recording of this event for $75

TO REGISTER: Click here or call Suzanne Galloway toll-free at 1-800-560-6363

For one low price—just $249—you and your entire team can take part in this fast-paced, insightful webinar. Best of all, you’ll be able to hear answers to your questions with the panelists when you here the Q and A session answers.

 Here’s just some of what you’ll learn during this in-depth 50-minute webinar:

• How to select the right subspecialty.

• Where to find out about the best pathology fellowship programs.

• Easy steps for establishing yourself as the top applicant.

• The best time to apply for pathology fellowships.

• Why each fellowship program has different selection criteria.

• Interviewing do’s and don’ts.

• Advantages and disadvantages of the academic and non-academic experience.

• Strategies for navigating the oft-confusing fellowship application process.

• Must-do steps to take once you’ve been accepted into a fellowship program.

• Why you need a backup plan—and what to do if you’re not accepted.

…and much more!

Individuals who benefit from this webinar download:

• Pathology chief residents, residents and fellows
• Academic pathology chairs
• Residency program directors
• Pathology department administrators
• Undergraduate and graduate medical educators
• Pathology and laboratory professionals

How to Register:

1. Online
2. Call toll free: 800-560-6363

Your registration order includes:

• A site license to attend the webinar (invite as many people as you can fit around your computer at no extra charge)
• A downloadable PowerPoint presentations from our speaker
• A full transcript emailed to you soon after the conference

Register Now! Or for more information, call us toll-free at 800-560-6363.

Distinguished Experts:

Jerad M. Gardner, M.D. is Chair of the CAP Residents Forum and has served on the Residents Forum Executive Committee for the past three years. He is the soft tissue pathology fellow studying under Sharon Weiss at Emory University. This will be followed by a dermatopathology fellowship, also at Emory, beginning later this year. Dr. Gardner received his M.D. from Tulane University School of Medicine in 2006. He completed his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at The Methodist Hospital. During residency, Dr. Gardner founded the Pathology Resident Wiki, a website that can be freely edited by any user. The main intent of the Wiki is to provide a comprehensive list of pathology fellowship and residency programs, including feedback about those programs from current and past trainees. He is passionate about helping residents understand and navigate the seemingly treacherous waters of the fellowship selection and application process.

Robert E. Petras, M.D. has been the National Director for Gastrointestinal Pathology Services at AmeriPath Inc. since 2002. He is also Managing Director of AmeriPath Cleveland, Medical Director and GI Pathology Fellowship Training Program, Director at AmeriPath’s Institute of Gastrointestinal Pathology and Digestive Disease Chairman of AmeriPath’s Gastrointestinal Pathology Resource Committee and an Associate Clinical Professor of Pathology at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. Prior to 2002, Dr. Petras chaired the Department of Anatomic Pathology, was Vice Chairman of the Division of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and directed the Pathology Residency Training Program at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He received his doctorate of medicine from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and completed his residency at the Cleveland Clinic. Afterwards, he received subspecialty training in gastrointestinal pathology at St. Mark’s Hospital in London. He has been active in the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP). He frequently presents as faculty at various courses and workshops. He has received numerous awards including the 1997 ASCP Distinguished Service Award and the 2001 Impact Paper of the Year Award from the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He has co-authored more than 200 publications in gastrointestinal pathology including Tumors of the Intestines, part of the AFIP Atlas of Tumor Pathology Fascicle series.

The Daily Scan - Aperio's daily news and views about Digital Pathology and many other services has an iPhone App that keeps you connected to the site.  Click on image below for larger size.  App free of charge from iTunes store.

When I received my copy of MLO Medical Laboratory Observer this past week it reminded me there were a few articles of interest last month in the journal.  Both provide value propositions for digital pathology with use cases illustrated by Dr. Schwartz of Aperio.

Digital Pathology and imaging — past, present, and future

By Karen Lynn 

The first focus of digital pathology was to automate the microscope. “The ultimate goal was to begin the migration from a physical slide to a digital image and ensure users’ comfort during the transition,” says Jason Christiansen, PhD, senior director of Operations at HistoRx. In its earlier days, image-analysis applications were produced but limited to existing testing paradigms which had less impact than the leap to slide digitization. Fast-forward five years. Today, image quality is virtually identical to viewing a glass slide under the microscope. In fact, pathologists are willing to make diagnoses based on an image versus actual glass.

Viewing slides digitally gives numerous advantages that glass slides do not provide; for example, tumors and areas suspicious for disease can be measured more precisely; images can be manipulated and utilized for consultation and teaching purposes; images can be viewed by more than 100 people simultaneously from anywhere in the world; and automated, quantifying algorithms for estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and HER2 have since been developed and FDA-cleared, reports Joon Yim, MD, director of digital pathology at Acupath Laboratories. In addition, digital pathology supports rapid-assessment turnaround time for frozen sections which are critical to surgical protocols, and those slides can be digitally imaged and stored in a central repository.

Full text

Expanding the lab’s reach with digital pathology

By Jared Schwartz, MD, PhD 

Advances in digital-pathology systems, including rapid slide creation, data management, and image-visualization techniques are transforming the practice of pathology. A powerful tool in anatomic pathology, advancements in digital pathology continue to enhance efficiency and accuracy, resulting in lower costs, significant workflow efficiencies, and improved patient care.

Digital slides are a complete representation of the entire glass slide, viewable on a computer monitor at any magnification. Web-based pathology picture archiving and communication system, familiarly known as PACS, allow pathologists to work remotely anytime, anywhere, to deliver accurate results faster than traditional methods.

As digital pathology becomes more accessible for the average lab, the ability to work digitally provides opportunities to offer new services and tests, attract new customers, and create new business lines. Implementing an outreach business enabled by digital pathology is an emerging strategy that is helping many labs maintain market share and increase growth and profitability.

Full text

This new partnership signifies a major breakthrough with a market leader in Comprehensive, Personalized Testing Services

MONTREAL (CANADA), April 13, 2011 – Aurora Interactive Ltd., a world leader in digital pathology communications announced today that the company has signed a license agreement for its mScope Clinical communications and imaging modalities integration platform with Molecular Pathology Laboratory Network, Inc. (MPLN), a leader in specialized reference laboratory services dedicated to providing superior diagnostic testing and complementary technologies, including molecular diagnostics, flow cytometry, fluorescence in situ hybridization,immunohistochemistry and cytogenetics.

“We chose Aurora for their cost efficient plug-and-play and proven integration solution. Given the variety of imaging modalities we use, we considered Aurora’s universality key to maintaining our strategic flexibility and creating a common user interface for our internal and external clients,” said Steve Olsen, MS, HTL (ASCP), Chief Operating Officer of MPLN.

“We are very excited about MPLN’s decision to partner with Aurora. MPLN is a cutting edge provider who is dedicated to client service and making a difference in patient care. We are proud they chose us as their communications and integration partner” stated Pierre Le Fèvre, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aurora Interactive.

About Aurora Interactive Ltd.

Aurora Interactive has developed the leading web based software platform (mScope) for simplification, productivity and ease of communications in digital pathology. mScope’s Universal Web Viewer has collaborative tools to view medical slides and images anytime, anywhere, regardless of file format. The software has four applications to meet digital pathology communications needs: mScope Education, mScope Clinical, mScope Research and mScope Universal Viewer. Aurora’s mission is to improve patient outcomes and help members of the medical community achieve their full potential by eliminating the learning, diagnostic and collaborative restrictions imposed by time and space. http://www.aurorainteractive.com.

About Molecular Pathology Laboratory Network, Inc.

Molecular Pathology Laboratory Network, Inc. (MPLN) is a privately-owned regional reference laboratory founded in 1989 with headquarters in Maryville, Tenn. and a satellite laboratory in Richmond, Va. A leader in personalized laboratory medicine, MPLN specializes in oncology and women’s health testing and has extensive expertise in chromosome analysis, flow cytometry, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), real-time and quantitative polymerase chain reaction technologies, anatomic pathology, immunohistochemistry and gene sequencing. The laboratory also offers research and development services through its clinical trial division, Geneuity Clinical Research Services. MPLN is certified by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and licensed by the states of Tennessee, Florida, New York and Maryland. For more information about MPLN, visit http://www.mplnet.com.

Dr. Moore was one of the smartest informaticians I have had the pleasure of knowing.  I first met him at an APIII meeting in 2001 where he embraced "E-posters" and made sure to look at yours.  His website, http://www.netautopsy.org lists over 400 publications, book chapters and abstracts and he was a mentor to many.  His interests in surgical pathology and autopsy pathology were broad and given his combined interest and expertise in medical and pathology informatics, allowed Dr. Moore to refine data mining techniques and create mathematical models of disease and disease processes.   

April 10, 2011|By Nick Madigan, The Baltimore Sun

A pioneer in medical informatics, he held appointments at Johns Hopkins Hospital and other institutions

Dr. George William Moore, who had practiced pathology in Baltimore since 1976 and was a pioneer in the field of medical informatics, died April 4 after a long illness. He was 65.

During his career, Dr. Moore published hundreds of articles on pathology and computational medicine. His work in the closely related fields of medical informatics and pathology informatics, both of which emerged in the 1970s, was groundbreaking. Medical informatics covers the broad field of hospital computerization, while pathology informatics deals with the organization, retrieval and analysis of clinical laboratory data collected in medical centers.

Dr. Moore, celebrated for a fine singing voice as well as a prodigious beard, held appointments at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He developed a wide range of computational techniques for collecting and indexing the data contained in pathology reports. He also established novel statistical methods for analyzing the collected data.

He was born in Detroit and grew up in the suburb of Highland Park. He was educated in public schools and graduated at the top of his class at Highland Park High School in 1963.

He attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he majored in cellular biology and earned a bachelor's degree in science. He received his doctorate in biomathematics from North Carolina State University at Raleigh. After a year of postdoctoral training at the University of Freiburg in Germany, Dr. Moore returned to Detroit, where he earned a medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1976.

Five years earlier, he had married the former Barbara Lynne Struble. They had two sons, Geoffrey Walter Moore, who was born in 1974 and died three months ago, and Gregory Vincent Wayne Moore, born in 1980, who survives him.

Dr. Moore and his family moved to Baltimore in 1976, and lived most recently in Cedarcroft. In 1981, he completed an internship and residency in the pathology department at Hopkins, and stayed on as an assistant professor in pathology until 1989. That year, he accepted an appointment as associate professor at the University of Maryland School Of Medicine and continued to teach at Hopkins' various institutions. Also in 1989, Dr. Moore began practicing as a full-time pathologist at the VA Medical Center, a position he held until his death.

In 1967, Dr. Moore was named a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and in 1980 received the Ludwig Aschoff Medal from the Medical Society of Freiburg. In 2007, he was named an honorary fellow by the Association for Pathology Informatics.

From 1957 until shortly before he died, Dr. Moore sang tenor in various chorus societies. He was particularly proud to have been a chorus member in a performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1959, under the baton of Paul Paray, as well as a performance in 1966 of the University of Michigan Choral Union conducted by the Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky. Most recently, Dr. Moore sang in the choir for the Episcopal Church of Christ the King, in Woodlawn, where he was a member of the congregation.

In addition to his wife and son, Dr. Moore is survived by a brother, James Michael Moore, and a sister, Kathleen Elizabeth Moore.