Lost tissue samples a thing of the past with new innovative tracking system?

Summary

The stress and anxiety felt by patients awaiting a potential cancer diagnosis can be made much worse if they are told their sample has been lost. Delays can impact treatment options and patient outcomes. 

Dil Rathore is a Biomedical Scientist and Pathology Innovation Lead at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. In this interview, he tells us about a new tracking system he’s developed to reduce the number of patient tissue samples going missing. 

Content

Can you tell us more about the histopathology service you work with? 

Our histopathology service focuses on diagnosing diseases by examining tissue samples under a microscope. It is key in identifying conditions like cancer, infections and inflammation. Typically collected through biopsies or surgeries, samples are processed in various ways and we then assess the tissue’s cellular structure to detect abnormalities. 

Our findings guide clinical decisions, such as confirming cancer types, grading tumours and determining treatment options. The detailed reports produced by our service are essential in shaping patient care and are often discussed within multidisciplinary teams for comprehensive treatment planning. 

Are lost samples a problem? 

The stress and anxiety felt by patients awaiting a potential cancer diagnosis can be made much worse if they are told their sample has been misplaced or lost. Unfortunately, this ‘never event’ happens more often than is acceptable across the NHS and globally. 

While working in histopathology, I became interested in clinical systems, digital pathology and sample tracking systems. These systems are used by most NHS organisations, but they are prone to user error and are inherently flawed. They can only provide historical information about a sample's past, rather than its current location, which leads to uncertainty about where these precious patient samples are at any given time. Tissue blocks move constantly around the department to undergo additional processes. Dynamic movement around the department is both a necessity and also adds to the challenge of locating these samples. 

How does your new system work?

From developing an understanding of sample tracking systems, I identified significant opportunities to enhance patient safety. Improvements were clearly necessary, but the technology to enable change still needed to be created. So, with support from the Innovation Pop-Up* I developed a new system. 

Our new system allows continuous, real-time tracking of the cassettes through Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. 

Key elements

• It tells us the precise location of each sample and its movement through our histopathology department. 
• Our custom tag provides the read ranges we require for the technology to work successfully in a clinical environment. 
• Installing antennas and readers throughout the department allowed us to collect live data on the movements of our patients' samples. 
• Our tag provides improved signal ranges, readability, and resilience of RFID technology in harsh processing conditions.  

How was this work resourced and developed?

Thanks to seed funding provided by the Leeds Hospitals Charity, we were able to demonstrate ‘proof of concept’ with the innovation. Demonstrating the technological capabilities of the concept helped support an additional funding application to Innovate UK’s Knowledge Asset funding, which allowed us to scale the system as a minimal viable produce (MVP). 

Without support and funding, we wouldn’t have been able to develop the UK's first real-time histopathology sample tracking system. 

Were there challenges along the way? 

Innovating within the NHS has historically been difficult as the required infrastructure and support mechanisms have yet to be in place. Testing a new and/or unknown technology brings uncertainty and risk. 

Thanks to the support of Leeds Hospitals Charity, our Innovation Pop-Up team and the Pathology departments, we have begun to understand this process more robustly and agilely. This has led to the establishment of new methods for future innovation endeavours to allow more streamlined processes to test, and potentially adopt, innovations and new ideas. 

What’s next for this work?

Although we are still testing and validating the data, we have seen some notable improvements since using the system:

• The RFID real-time tracking system offers never-before-seen visibility and data on our processes, ensuring samples are accounted for from collection to testing. This can reduce the risk of human error, leading to a more rapid turnaround of results and better patient outcomes. 
• Pathologists' workflow can be streamlined as our labs can process samples and generate reports faster, thus optimising pathologist time, allowing for quicker decision-making and treatment initiation.
• The impact on patient care has been incredible. Diagnostic results are being delivered quickly, helping healthcare providers make prompt decisions regarding treatment plans, leading to improved patient outcomes and quicker recoveries.

What advice would you give others wanting to develop innovations in the NHS?

Carrying out due diligence and discovery is vital. Knowing what technology already exists and what current market offerings are available will begin to help shape innovation. Once you understand what you would like to see, explore current offerings to investigate if simple modifications could provide the solution. If this cannot be done, work in collaboration with other departments within your Trust (Scan4Safety, Clinical Engineering, etc.) to seek a solution.

What’s next for this work?

We will continue to collect data on the systems' performance and expand into other areas of the Trust to enhance the data. Once we have enough data, we hope to publish our findings. We are also exploring potential partnerships to help support the commercialisation of this innovation. 

If you are interested in RFID or RFID for Pathology Services, please contact Dil Singh Rathore ([email protected]), Pathology Technology & Innovation Lead, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. 

*a support programme at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for clinicians and entrepreneurs with ideas for new products and services that solve healthcare challenges.

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About the Author

Dil Rathore, is a Biomedical Scientist and Pathology Innovation Lead at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. His career as a Biomedical Scientist within Pathology in the NHS has spanned over 15 years across clinical Biochemistry, immunology and histopathology.