RaySearch Laboratories AB and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
have entered into a long-term partnership regarding the RayCare® oncology
information system (OIS), which is currently under development at RaySearch.
RayCare® is a next-generation OIS that is designed to meet the future challenges
of cancer care. In this partnership, RayCare® will enable UCSF Radiation
Oncology to push the envelope in delivering world-class, highly specialized
cancer care. At the same time, important input will be provided for the
development of RayCare®.
RayCare® will support complex procedures and analyses that are out of reach with
current information management systems. UCSF has ongoing projects on genomics
and big data, which strive to increase knowledge about cancer and cancer care.
The RaySearch/UCSF partnership is intended to develop a step-wise and
comprehensive approach to provide data infrastructure to be used for clinical
decision support and individualization of cancer care within radiation oncology.
If the collected data is sufficiently structured, advanced tools for analyzing
enormous amounts of data, so called big data analysis, can help discover new
causal relationships, such as between genomic profile, delivered dose and
outcome. RayCare® will become a key component in collecting and structuring
treatment and follow-up data and enable pooling of data and analysis using other
systems.
In delivering a complete cancer treatment, hundreds of steps have to be
performed by a team of several different specialists, all in a carefully
orchestrated fashion. To increase efficiency and safety, it is necessary for
RayCare® to present the right amount of information in an intelligible way and
allow the users to take necessary action with minimal effort. Streamlining the
usability of RayCare® is an integral part of the partnership.
Another key feature of RayCare® is to optimize the use of resources in the
clinic. The resources include treatment machines, accessories and imaging
systems, etc., as well as human resources represented by physicists, therapists,
oncologists and other members of the care team. The choice of, for instance,
treatment technique, target localization and treatment delivery system
determines the resource requirements while also influencing the treatment plan
quality. RayCare® is built to integrate resource utilization, plan quality
assessment and scheduling in one system.
“UCSF is an ideal partner for this exciting project. It is not only a world
-leading institution in terms of quality of care, UCSF Radiation Oncology also
offers a diverse environment of treatment machines and other systems, making it
a formidable proving ground for RayCare®. But perhaps even more important is the
inspiration and motivation we get from working with the devoted and skilled team
at UCSF,” says Johan Löf, CEO of RaySearch.
“There is a strong need for a new approach to information management within
cancer care. The Radiation Oncology department is a natural place to start this
development since we are involved in cancer treatment for virtually all types of
cancer. Already today, Radiation Oncology has a very complex flow of
information, which is difficult to manage with current systems. Our goal is to
find a system that will provide higher efficiency in our clinic and enable us to
support future initiatives within adaptive radiation therapy and precision
medicine that would otherwise be impossible,” says Catherine Park, M.D.,
professor in residence and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF.
About RayCare®
RayCare® is a next generation OIS developed from the ground up by RaySearch to
support the complex logistical challenges in modern, large-scale radiation
therapy centers. RayCare® integrates the high performance radiation therapy
algorithms available in RayStation® and adds advanced features for clinical
resource optimization, workflow automation and adaptive radiation therapy. The
system is expected to be released in 2017.
About UCSF
UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health
worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the
life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It
includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and
pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic,
biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical
research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises top-ranked
hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San
Francisco and Oakland – and other partner and affiliated hospitals and
healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area. Please visit www.ucsf.edu/news.
About RaySearch
RaySearch Laboratories is a medical technology company that develops advanced
software solutions for improved radiation therapy of cancer. RaySearch markets
the RayStation® treatment planning system to clinics all over the world. In
addition, RaySearch’s products are distributed through licensing agreements with
leading medical technology companies. RaySearch’s software is used by over 2,600
clinics in more than 65 countries. RaySearch was founded in 2000 as a spin-off
from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the company is listed in the Mid
Cap segment on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm.
For more information about RaySearch, visit www.raysearchlabs.com
For further information, please contact:
Johan Löf, President and CEO, RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ)
Telephone: +46 (0)8-510 530 00
johan.lof@raysearchlabs.com
