Corista Receives Patent Grant for New Virtual Slide Stage
July 14, 2020
Slide viewing interface substantially improves the ergonomics of digital pathology
Corista, an integrated pathology solutions leader, has received a USPTO patent grant for its new Virtual Slide Stage (VSS). This interface device greatly improves the ergonomic efficiency of digital slide viewing for pathologists and could ease the path to greater adoption of digital pathology platforms.
“One of the barriers to digital pathology acceptance has been the lack of an efficient interface. The virtual slide stage solves that problem,” said Dave Wilbur, MD, Corista’s chief scientist and pathologist."
“Mainstream adoption of digital pathology has been slow for a number of practical and regulatory reasons. The virtual slide stage eliminates a practical barrier. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown the need for remote pathology interpretation and has led to emergency relief for digital methods, lifting a regulatory barrier. This combination could potentially accelerate its wider use,” said Corista Founder, President and CEO Elizabeth Wingard.
Corista’s VSS allows pathologists to physically work with digital pathology images in a similar manner to the long-established process of traditional glass slide microscopy. “One of the barriers to digital pathology acceptance has been the lack of an efficient interface. The virtual slide stage solves that problem,” said Dave Wilbur, MD, Corista’s chief scientist and a pathologist himself. “It essentially allows pathologists to use the same fine motor skills to view digital slides that they have honed for decades. With this device, pathologists can be just as productive with digital slides as they are with their standard microscopy practice.”
In the current environment, digital slide viewing methods have used standard interface devices, such as a mouse, to navigate slides onscreen. Not being designed for this task, the mouse requires highly repetitive hand movements, which can lead to rapid fatigue. Corista’s virtual slide stage is a desktop platform, about the size of a paperback book. Pathologists can use one hand to manipulate and view a slide on the platform.
“The concept came as we started to think about ways we could improve on a standard mouse to imitate the way a pathologist uses a microscope,” said Dr. Wilbur. “The virtual slide stage recapitulates that highly efficient process. Where pathologists might have been reluctant to switch to digital interpretation because of the ergonomics, we believe this advancement is going to drive acceptance of digital pathology for daily use.”
Corista’s new device and the ergonomic improvement it brings to digital pathology also may aid in acceptance of remote work, including primary pathology diagnosis. Use of digital pathology in primary diagnoses has been restricted, and remote interpretation of pathology cases was prohibited under CLIA regulations. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CMMS and CAP issued guidance allowing use of validated digital systems for remote primary diagnoses. Lifting these restrictions will help protect the health of pathology staff members during COVID-19 while ensuring continued quality of care to patients.
“COVID-19 is forcing the medical and regulatory communities to examine ways to combine the advantages of specimen digitization with the connective power of the internet to keep pathologists safe and at work, while safeguarding both the quality of work and the privacy of patient data,” Dr. Keith Kaplan, Corista’s chief medical officer, said. “This is an opportunity during very different times to herald real change within our specialty.”
About Corista
Corista delivers the industry’s most extensive array of workflow, analytical and collaborative tools for pathology. Medical centers can seamlessly integrate with LIS/EHRs in a unified digital environment of whole-slide, gross, and static pathology images. Physicians have 21st-century tools to collaborate, communicate, teach, and report with access to ‘best of breed’ image analytics. Specialists can receive digital consults from remote physicians and patients from across the globe, and investigator-initiated researchers have a research and development platform to develop and apply their algorithms. Corista provides for a new level of interoperability for pathology, integrating whole slide image scanning systems, image analytics, and LIS/EHR platforms with a rich collaborative environment for physicians, patients, bio-tech and pharmaceutical scientists. This is Integrated Pathology™ only from Corista. For more information, visit https://corista.com/.