Remote Viewing for Intraoperative Consultations at Thomas Jefferson University

Robert Stapp, Director of Clinical Informatics and assistant professor of pathology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, led the integration of Augmentiqs for on-call remote viewing for intraoperative consultation (a.k.a. “frozen section”). Following over 6 months of ongoing use, Robert provided this feedback for other pathology departments.

Who Uses Augmentiqs & What Was Used Previously

According to Robert, the pathology residents at TJU use Augmentiqs several times per week to consult with pathologists located off-site.

Until this point, a pathologist on call would have to physically come to the hospital in order to render a diagnosis from the slide(s). Other technical methods that have been employed in the past involved using an image streaming application by the hospital’s microscope camera vendor and a free screen sharing application.

The Benefits of Augmentiqs for Remote Viewing for Intraoperative Consultations

Greater time savings compared to previous methods, some minor (e.g. compared to previous remote technologies) and others much greater (i.e. 30-40 min travel time back to the hospital).
The fact that the transmission is secure and meets HIPAA encryption requirements which keeps us compliant with the needs of our enterprise IT security group and regulatory body, that has oversite over the laboratory for accreditation, College of American Pathologists (CAP).
The ability to have multiple users in the same session and share annotations adds the ability for more interaction and teaching when users are remote from each other. This ability is to the benefit of the residents who are performing the frozen section.”

How Would You Describe Augmentiqs to Pathologists?

“Augmentiqs is an affordable, secure product that leverages existing equipment already in the lab and enables close collaboration and interaction among remote users. It offers excellent image quality, fast image transmission, new innovative features such as augmented reality of the microscope eyepiece, annotation sharing in real-time, and it is only going to get better.”