Summary: Alverno Laboratories has implemented Ibex Medical Analytics’ AI-powered platform across its network, enhancing cancer diagnosis for prostate, breast, and gastric biopsies.
Key Takeaways:
- The phased launch of Ibex’s AI solutions supports pathologists in diagnosing prostate, breast, and gastric cancers, aiming to improve diagnostic accuracy and turnaround times.
- Alverno serves over 30 hospital laboratories and thousands of physician offices, impacting more than 8 million patients annually across the Midwest.
- The AI integration aims to boost pathologists’ productivity, reduce operational costs, and deliver high-quality diagnostic services, demonstrating Alverno’s commitment to innovation in patient care.
Alverno Laboratories, a provider of diagnostic testing services and one of the largest integrated laboratory networks in the U.S., and Ibex Medical Analytics, a leader in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cancer diagnostics, announced the launch of the Ibex’s AI platform in routine practice within Alverno’s laboratory network in Illinois and Indiana.
Launching the AI-Powered Platform
The phased launch encompasses AI-centric solutions for cancer diagnosis across multiple tissue types, including prostate, breast and gastric, that support pathologists and other physicians in providing quality of care for their patients. The laboratory system has recently completed phase 1 of its launch plan, enabling AI-powered prostate cancer detection for prostate biopsies, followed by breast and gastric.
Alverno serves over 30 hospital laboratories and thousands of physician offices and other care facilities, touching over 8 million patients’ lives per year across the Midwest, the company says. Alverno was also among the first laboratories in the United States to digitize its pathology services, harnessing the high-throughput capabilities of the Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution across its system. The combined power of digital pathology and AI aims to improve services provided by Alverno to hospitals, physicians, patients, and caregivers by improving diagnostic accuracy and turnaround time.
“When looking for an AI partner, we wanted a shared vision for innovation yet a relentless drive for execution. We chose Ibex because of its high-quality, innovative products and customer service. Throughout our implementation and onboarding process, the Ibex team was active and responsive, something not always experienced when working on new projects,” says Sam Terese, CEO and president of Alverno Laboratories. “For us, the notion of going digital with AI is just something we would do, it’s about who we are. It’s about delivering appropriate and great care to our patients while speeding up time to results and ensuring the highest possible quality result any lab can deliver, and we are really thrilled to have a partnership with Ibex to help us along in that journey.”
Ibex Diagnostic Solutions
Ibex’s suite of solutions supports Alverno pathologists in a variety of tasks during routine review of prostate, breast. and gastric biopsies. The solutions help with case prioritization, AI-powered cancer detection and reporting and optimization of immunohistochemistry workflows and other productivity-enhancing tools. This implementation of AI on a large scale across the entire laboratory network has the potential to improve pathologists’ productivity and user experience, reduce operational costs and improve overall service levels, the company says. Ibex is the most widely deployed AI technology in pathology and is used as part of everyday clinical practice at laboratories, hospitals and health systems worldwide. Ibex demonstrated outstanding outcomes across multiple clinical studies performed on various tissue types and diagnostic workflows.1,2,3,4,5
“Alverno has a very clear commitment to innovation and continually improving the delivery of care for its community, and this commitment is demonstrated by the successful implementation of the Ibex’s suite of solutions,” says Joseph Mossel, CEO and co-founder of Ibex Medical Analytics. “AI enables Alverno pathologists to work more consistently, reproducibly and efficiently to enable the highest level of diagnostic laboratory services for the patients in the community for which they serve. We’re honored and excited to partner with their team and support them in providing the highest quality of diagnostic services.”
References:
- Pantanowitz et al., “An Artificial Intelligence Algorithm for Prostate Cancer Diagnosis in Whole Slide Images of Core Needle Biopsies: A Blinded Clinical Validation and Deployment Study,” The Lancet Digital Health (Aug 2020)
- Sandbank et al., “Validation and Real-World Clinical Application of an Artificial Intelligence Algorithm for Breast Cancer Detection in Biopsies,” npj Breast Cancer 8, 129 (2022)
- Comperat et al., “Clinical Level AI-Based Solution for Primary Diagnosis and Reporting of Prostate Biopsies in Routine Use: A Prospective Reader Study, European Congress of Pathology (2021)
- Raoux et al., “Novel AI-Based Solution for Supporting Primary Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer Increases the Accuracy and Efficiency of Reporting in Clinical Routine,” USCAP (2021)
- Sandbank et al., “Validation and Clinical Deployment of an AI-Based Solution for Detection of Gastric Adenocarcinoma and Helicobacter pylori in Gastric Biopsies,” USCAP (2022)