University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has awarded a contract worth £593,460 to Histofy for a digital histology annotation solution for the West Midlands Secure Data Environment (WMSDE).
The solution is to be deployed within the WMSDE, a data storage and access platform, to support the development of AI technologies. This includes responsibility for processing de-identified digital pathology image data and its associated metadata for annotation purposes.
Digital pathology whole slide images offer a rich source of data to be used for algorithm development to support with diagnosis and treatment, UHB states, with computer scientists needing this kind of data to be prepared to facilitate their work.
“A crucial step in this preparation involves defining the pathology present within the slide and pinpointing its location so that it can be cross-referenced with the pixel data used by CS to train and test their algorithms,” the trust states. “This process, known as semantic annotation, encompasses various levels of detail, from slide-level labels such as tissue type and disease status (positive or negative) to the identification of specific cell types and even subcellular structures, including organelles or viral inclusions.”
All processing should take place within approved WMSDE infrastructure, and should not be otherwise transferred, stored, or processed, the trust outlines, whilst data should be used exclusively for research and innovation activities.
The contract is set to run from 12 December 2025 to 11 December 2026, with a possible extension of four 12-month periods potentially taking it to 11 December 2030.
Wider trend: Procurement
Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust has selected the Nervecentre electronic patient record as its preferred supplier, following a tender process. The trust becomes the eleventh acute trust to select the EPR, with neighbouring trusts, Harrogate and District deploying the platform and York and Scarborough planning to go live early next year.
Epic has announced the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany’s largest university hospital, has selected its EPR, following a two year procurement process. The EPR is to replace a system used at the Charité for the past 20 years, that will no longer be updated and maintained in the future. A financial plan of around 200 million euros is in development to support the programme, covering software licenses, IT infrastructure and implementation support.
North East and North Cumbria ICB has awarded a contract with a total value of up to £2.4 million to Accurx for the provision of digital tools to support digital pathways in line with modernising general practice requirements. The contract, covering an initial period of six months and a value of £809,622 excluding VAT, is for an online consultation, video consultation, appointment booking, and text messaging tool.
