The Royal College of Pathologists (London, U.K.) has executed a licensing agreement with mTuitive Inc. (Centerville, MA) under which the U.S. Company will create an electronic version of cancer reporting datasets developed by the Royal College to standardize the classification and reporting of malignant tumors.
As part of the agreement, mTuitive will provide guidance in the design and structural requirements of the datasets to ensure consistency in the application of the standards, which will become required for the reporting of all malignant tumor cases in the United Kingdom. The capture of standardized reporting data will facilitate the automation of cancer registry reporting and data abstraction processes across the British healthcare system.
The agreement also calls for mTuitive to develop an educational program to teach pathologists how to utilize the electronic reporting process and stress the importance of structured data capture for research and treatment monitoring purposes. Professional credit for medical licensure renewal will be offered for participation in the educational program.
The license agreement states that: The mTuitive software meets the requirements of the Royal College of Pathologists and has been accredited for the purposes of cancer reporting.
"We are honored to align ourselves with one of the most prestigious medical professional bodies in the world. The combination of the Colleges thought leadership and expertise in pathology combined with the mTuitive expert decision support toolset will provide immediate efficiencies to the clinical pathology process," said Robin Alexander, Vice President Europe, mTuitive Inc.
The relationship further validates mTuitive's business model where subject matter experts utilize existing knowledge sources and established practices to populate mTuitive's technology framework to rapidly generate expert applications. The applications provide data capture, procedural compliance, knowledge extension and decision support solutions for synoptic reporting and structured data reporting. The process reduces development time from months to hours.
Dr. Martin Westwell (Royal College of Pathologists) noted that "the mTuitive solution provides the College's cancer datasets in a structured data format and will enhance the capability of practitioners to apply synoptic reporting which goes hand-in-hand with structured data. As one is constraining the report to individual data elements, it is possible for a computer to intelligently analyze individual elements for a variety of clinical and research purposes."
Robin Alexander added, "the mTuitive application provides a unique and intriguing solution to the many attempts to extract structured data from existing narrative pathology reports. Excellent results are obtained by the initial capture of consistently structured data. In other words, by a human process of synoptic reporting translated into machine-readable structured data."
The mTuitive approach to synoptic reporting simplifies the process and can reduce errors in electronic data capture to near zero, The system also improves billing and coding efficiency and accuracy by automatically assigning codes at the point of decision The major advantage to the pathologist is the single step sign out process often referred to as "once and done."
About mTuitive, Inc.: mTuitive was founded in 2002 by experts in medicine, human factors engineering and software development who have brought many years of professional experience to creating the mTuitive solution The mTuitive mission is to bring the power of computers quality assurance, labor savings and knowledge access to healthcare workers in a way that enhances, rather than disrupts, their ability to provide quality care.
About The Royal College of Pathologists: Pathologists study the causes of disease and the ways in which disease processes affect our bodies. Recognizing the patterns that disease takes allows us to understand what's at the root of a problem, enabling accurate diagnosis. Following up this understanding helps treatments to be devised and preventative measures to be put in place. The Royal College of Pathologists' mission is to promote excellence in the practice of pathology and to be responsible for maintaining standards through training, examinations, and professional development. The Royal College of Pathologists was established in 1962 to co-ordinate this development and maintain the internationally renowned standards and reputation of British pathology. Today the College advises on a vast range of issues relating to pathology.