Healthcare AI startup Paige is joining forces with Microsoft subsidiary Nuance to launch what they say is “the largest digital consultation network in pathology,” the companies announced Monday at RSNA 2023, the annual radiology and medical imaging conference in Chicago.
Through this new effort, Paige is expanding its partnership with Microsoft. In January, the tech giant made a strategic investment in Paige to help it build AI diagnostics on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.
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New York City-based Paige, which was founded in 2017, seeks to transform cancer diagnostics through tissue pathology and AI. The startup works with health systems, hospitals and laboratories to digitize pathology and workflows, as well as use AI to help pathologists diagnose cancer faster. Some of the company’s digital pathology tools include the Paige Platform, which allows pathologists to make a diagnosis on a digital slide, and FullFocus, a FDA-cleared digital slide viewer.
Under Paige’s new collaboration, the startup’s digital pathology tools will be embedded into PowerShare, Nuance’s nationwide image sharing network. The goal of this is to connect more pathology labs — regardless of their digital capabilities — to leading pathologists at renowned hospitals and health systems.
“Paige has built a very sophisticated platform to digitize pathology images, and they built a very specialized viewer to view them, as well as AI models to provide computer-assisted detection for various forms of cancer,” said Peter Durlach, chief strategy officer for Microsoft’s health and life sciences division, in an interview. “What Nuance brings is on our PowerShare network, which is the largest image sharing network in the country today with over 14,000 connected sites. We have all the last mile connections for image routing and security in all these sites, but we don’t do anything on the digital pathology side — we just do it on the DICOM radiology side.”
By bringing the capabilities of Paige and Nuance together, the partnership gives pathology labs “a very simple electronic way” to share virtual slides for second opinions, he explained.
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The new digital consultation network is designed to enable pathologists across the nation to more easily and quickly contribute to digital slide analyses. The overall aim of this network is to reduce costs, save time and decrease slide damage risks that are associated with sending out analogue slides for external consultations, Durlach noted.
The practice of shipping out slides is costly, as well as time-consuming — looking through a more “big picture” lens, the network seeks to decrease the amount of time it takes for patients to get their final diagnosis.
“Since these slides are cancer related, it’s really important to get this stuff done quickly. We all know if that second read doesn’t happen fast, you might not actually get the right diagnosis or something really bad could happen that maybe could have been avoided,” Durlach said.
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