Problem: Tissue Micro-Arrays (TMA) are slides containing 400 distinct patient specimens on a single slide. BUI needed to catalog slides, patients on each slide, how slides were stained, diagnosis for each specimen and scanned image of each specimen. Their in-house MS Access prototype quickly reached limitations, particularly with inability to handle multiple organ systems. There were also concerns about keeping their applications HIPAA compliant.
Solution: VMT placed a developer onsite that created a Java application with Sybase database backend called TMA_J. Java Web Start enables full application to be launched and upgraded from anywhere. It supports multiple organ systems, slide creation, online diagnosis and collaboration while also being HIPAA compliant. The TMA_J application project has worked so well that it received an award at University of Pittsburgh Advancing Pathology Informatics conference.