MEDUSA Project: PLANET in the “Cloud”

For three years now, DOSIsoft has been strongly involved in the MEDUSA project (MEdical Distributed Utilization of Services & Applications), whose approach is to create a system in the “Cloud” to share applications and data. Thus, DOSIsoft is selected to present its PLANET software during the final review that will be held on December 15, 2015, at the office of Bull (Atos) in Grenoble.

Launched in January 2013, the MEDUSA project will be completed at the end of 2015. Within the project, 12 partners who represent an entire workflow have worked together. They comprise university research centers, hospital centers, research and development teams from SMEs and large companies. All of them have the expertise in the field of medical imaging and communication technology.

The consortium consists of the following players:

• 12 partners involved in the project
• 2 European countries are represented
• 8 of the 12 are industrial partners , among which 4 are SMEs
• 3 founder members of the ITEA have participated in the project: Philips, Bull and Cassidian Cybersecurity (Airbus)

MEDUSA allowed DOSIsoft to build a software demonstrator based on the PLANET application for the remote and simultaneous collaborative work of different medical specialists for contouring in radiotherapy.

MEDUSA: a new service concept in the healthcare domain

MEDUSA’s purpose is to enhance quality of diagnosis and decision making in acute and/or critical situations in a patient’s condition by introducing a new service concept in healthcare based on three pillars:

1. Advanced imaging as a service, by which MEDUSA:

• Ensures the timely and efficient exchange of medical information with an aim to satisfy the high levels of safety, security and privacy required for a secure environment
• Supports and encourages the appropriate use of both remote and local advanced medical image processing in real-time, such that the medical professional obtains the required detail of information
• Supports transparency of distribution with respect to geographical location, both fixed and mobile

2. Secure virtual workspaces as a service, by which MEDUSA

• Supports a collaborative workspace in a professional medical situation, where knowledge, capabilities and patient data are brought together and made available for clinical processing, respecting medical regulations and clinical procedures and protocols. This is an area where traceability, latency and interoperability are crucial issues

3. Medical diagnosis support as a service, by which MEDUSA

• Enables physicians to virtually group around a patient for diagnosis and treatment decision making

MEDUSA contributes to paving the way towards “societal computing” by:

• Enhancing the treatment of acute and chronic diseases by saving time, sharing expertise and enabling novel treatments
• Improving workflow efficiency, effectiveness of medical treatments, and prevent unnecessary transport of vulnerable patients
• Lowering healthcare costs by sharing images and expertise
• Dealing with healthcare professional staffing shortages by providing expertise through a dedicated virtual expert group
• Protecting patients conditions by faster and tailored treatment with less radiation dose given as double scanning can be avoided