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Biotech / Medical : ACMI - Accumed Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Armstrong who wrote (1061)	1/11/1998 10:42:00 AM
From: Sigmund	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1894

Well stated Jim. And lets go one step further. The first approach is to reject entire slides. The next step IMO is to reject sectors within slides and this is where Pathfinder and ACMI come into the picture. The fewer dead zones referred to the Cytotech the better. Beyond that it can become even more exciting for the Cytotech. The machine can state what it thinks it found and ask the Cytotech to confirm this. This is were humans really are good. And it is a challenge to prove a machine wrong when it is wrong. But we certainly need a way where the number of slides read per cytotech is not so great that they are worn down. It is like the flight controllers where stress is dangerous to them and travelers. A machine can make it easier on the techs and make their jobs more rewarding while processing more slides at an overall higher accuracy. This should not be upsetting to anyone. Has NeoPath achieved this? Its up to the Advisory Panel to determine this. No need for us to debate it other than to decide where we want to place our chips. Jan 28 will come soon enough. I believe the results are generally known about 5 pm so we can all be on the line shortly after with our post mortems. Sigmund 2) K-QB3

To: Jim Armstrong who wrote (1061)	1/11/1998 11:32:00 AM
From: Frank Buck	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1894

Jim, Thanks for that insight! Correct me if I am wrong but I believe the techs are legally-limited to reading a maximum of 100 slides daily. Given that, and allowing for an eight-hour work day, that would mean; 8 60 = 480 minutes / 100 = 4.8 minutes per slide.* So assuming a tech were illegally reading 200 = 2.4 minutes per slide and if they were illegally reading 300 daily then the number falls to 1.6 minutes time per slide! (Comments purposely with-held!!!) That would include any write up, refocus, positioning, etc., if using a traditional light-microscope. Obviously as we all know, distractions and other ambient factors would play a large part in the ability to stay focussed, especially when one is dealing with a highly repetitive task such as this. How would you like to be the second by-pass surgery patient of a cardiac-surgeon (with a splitting head-ache), on the day before his only daughters wedding? Hum-a-na-hum-n-a!! We can all see why there are mandated limits. No wonder this industry is screaming to be automated. I believe it was Henry Ford who once commented, "Give me the laziest-man, and I will show you the easiest way to accomplish any given task." If we were to apply that statement to a cytopathology lab setting, then the equipment manufacturing company employing the best I.E. (Industrial Engineering) department would have the best chance at fixing the problem. Obviously given proper attention to the existing, systemic standard-operating-procedures, as revealed by some rather tired-out cytologists. An interesting observation that I see developing is: When a primary screener (is given FDA approval) and employed by the labs (that can justify and realize its costs, etc.) the false negative and false positive rates should diminish. Now assuming another lab without automation feels competitive pressures (via volume price cuts from the larger automated-labs to its customers), the other labs may require even more productivity with an even higher error rate from its techs. Thereby only adding to their own demise. Surely the insurance companies will have to monitor any labs that have escalating false-error rates in the present and in the future. Frank