COLUMBIA, Mo. — Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced today the result of a collaboration with the University of Missouri School of Medicine (MU School of Medicine) to implement—for the first time in the U.S.—Roche’s new software solution to streamline and standardize the management of tumor boards, or multi-disciplinary meetings oncology care teams hold to make clinical treatment decisions for cancer patients.
Managing tumor boards can be labor intensive and time consuming for healthcare providers because it often requires manually collecting and organizing patient information from various sources—radiology and microscope slide images, pathology reports, electronic medical records and much more. “Our goal in working on this pilot with the MU School of Medicine and clinicians at MU Health Care was to fine-tune a digital decision support tool that could help transform the tumor board process,” said Alan Wright, MD, MPH, chief medical officer for Roche Diagnostics Corporation. “The collaboration gave us the opportunity to improve the software in a way that would fundamentally change the way their oncology care teams prepare for, conduct and document clinical treatment decisions for cancer patients.”
The new NAVIFY Tumor Board solution is designed to streamline and standardize tumor board workflows by combining relevant patient data from disparate sources into a cloud-based workflow solution and dashboard that facilitate efficient team collaboration, reduce errors, and give the care team more time to evaluate potential treatment options.
In addition to piloting the software for Roche and providing extensive feedback in the development process, MU Health Care has now used the newly launched commercial version of the software for actual tumor boards with two of its nine oncology care teams, and plans to implement the software across all of the remaining teams in the near future.
“As an academic health center, one of our goals is to bring innovation and discovery to the field of medicine,” said Jerry Parker, PhD, associate dean for research at the MU School of Medicine. “With our partners at Roche, we’ve only begun to explore the possibilities, but we already see tremendous potential for this type of solution to help advance cancer care. The workflow is much easier for our oncology nursing staff to manage, and the patient information is presented much more clearly, so we expect that to improve efficiency in the meetings and create more time for in-depth discussion of patient cases and the best treatment options.”
The software is designed to create a centralized repository of tumor board data, which will eventually enable MU Health Care providers and other oncology care teams to see how similar patients were managed in the past, and allows remote participation of experts from outside the location during the meeting, facilitating the concept of virtual tumor boards.
“There is the opportunity for a software solution like this to expand access to tumor boards in smaller communities,” added Dr. Parker. “It’s estimated that less than 50 percent of cancer patients in the U.S. benefit from tumor boards, in part because many communities are not in close proximity to oncology providers. I can foresee a day when a small community provider or hospital will be able to upload data to a regional cancer center tumor board to get access to highly specialized advice regarding their patients—or participate in tumor boards themselves remotely. There is exciting potential there to expand quality healthcare for cancer patients regardless of their location.”
About the NAVIFY portfolio
The NAVIFY brand represents Roche’s commitment to provide healthcare professionals with digital workflow and decision support solutions that transform patient care. The first commercially available product in the portfolio is the NAVIFY Tumor Board solution, a comprehensive dashboard for oncology care teams that enables them to standardize preparation, streamline presentation and ensure a more efficient workflow for individualized treatment decisions. The software is built and hosted on a secure cloud platform that is HIPAA compliant to ensure patient data security and privacy.
The portfolio will continuously evolve to include additional decision support applications and workflow products that address challenges faced by healthcare providers and research professionals. For more information, visit www.navify.com.
About the MU School of Medicine
The MU School of Medicine has improved health, education and research in Missouri and beyond for more than 170 years. MU physicians treat patients from every county in the state, and more Missouri physicians received their medical degrees from MU than from any other university. The MU School of Medicine is home to research and educational programs in biomedical, clinical and translational sciences focused on translating discoveries into community-based products, services and practices for the state and nation. Research efforts concentrate on the deadliest diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, and the most vulnerable patients, including children and the elderly. For more information, visit http://medicine.missouri.edu/.
About Roche
Roche is a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics focused on advancing science to improve people’s lives. The combined strengths of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics under one roof have made Roche the leader in personalized healthcare – a strategy that aims to fit the right treatment to each patient in the best way possible.
Roche is the world’s largest biotech company, with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, ophthalmology and diseases of the central nervous system. Roche is also the world leader in in vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunner in diabetes management. Founded in 1896, Roche continues to search for better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases and make a sustainable contribution to society. The company also aims to improve patient access to medical innovations by working with all relevant stakeholders. Thirty medicines developed by Roche are included in the World Health Organization Model Lists of Essential Medicines, among them life-saving antibiotics, antimalarials and cancer medicines. Roche has been recognized as the Group Leader in sustainability within the Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology & Life Sciences Industry nine years in a row by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI).
The Roche Group, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, is active in over 100 countries and in 2017 employed about 94,000 people worldwide. In 2017, Roche invested CHF 10.4 billion in R&D and posted sales of CHF 53.3 billion. Genentech, in the United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche is the majority shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information, please visit www.roche.com or usdiagnostics.roche.com.