TRSA, the association for linen, uniform and facility services, recently held its 12th Annual Healthcare Conference and Exchange on Nov. 15–16 in Memphis, TN. The event brought together industry leaders and experts to share insights and best practices on serving the healthcare market sector.

The conference featured a keynote session by Nathan Bays, a healthcare M&A specialist at Citi, who discussed the latest trends and opportunities in the healthcare economy. Bays also shared insights on how healthcare operators can optimize their performance and deliver more value to their customers.

Following the keynote, a panel of technology experts from LinenMaster, Ecotex Healthcare Linen Services and NOVO Health Services shared their experiences and tips on using technology to enhance customer satisfaction and retention. The panel was moderated by Daniel Sanchez, the vice president of sales and marketing at Emerald Textiles.

The conference also included a presentation by Dr. Katie Laird, the head of infectious disease research at De Montfort University. She explained the current and emerging methods of microbiological testing in the commercial laundry industry. Kevin Schwalb, the vice president of government relations at TRSA, provided an update on the organization’s advocacy efforts and the key regulatory issues affecting the industry.

Chuck Rossmiller, the senior director of national field sales at Medline, presented the findings of the TRSA Healthcare Committee’s healthcare trends survey, which revealed the latest data and trends in the healthcare linen market. Rossmiller also engaged the audience with interactive live polling to get their feedback on the survey results.

The attendees had the opportunity to choose from two breakout sessions, one focusing on linen-loss prevention in the acute-healthcare sector, and the other on employee- engagement strategies in the nonacute healthcare sector.

The first day of the conference concluded with two more panel discussions. The first featured executives from Crothall, Ecotex
Healthcare Linen Services, HHA-FMA Laundry and HandCraft Services. These company leaders shared their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of serving the healthcare market, both acute and nonacute. The panel was moderated by Liz Remillong, vice president of strategic alliances at Crothall. Alsco Uniforms’ Healthcare Marketing Manager, Sara Oser, found the panel to be the most-engaging session. “It was like a crystal ball into the future of laundering. Navigating through this insightful session not only gave us a sneak peek into where the industry is headed but also served as a compass on how to best target our market.” Oser added, “Exciting times are ahead for those who dare to follow the trends.”

The second panel featured investment bankers from CIBC U.S. Middle Market Investment Banking, Stephens Inc. and Piper Sandler, who spoke on the role and impact of private equity in the healthcare linen industry. The panel was moderated by Andy Kratky, CEO of Emerald Textiles.

Healthcare conference attendees got a benefit by participating in the Exchange, TRSA’s online planner tool which allows attendees to efficiently schedule 15-minute, customized in-person meetings between TRSA Operator Members and Supplier Partners. The Exchange earned positive reviews from attendees such as Dan Flaherty, senior energy consultant, APPI Energy. He described the Exchange as, “a highly valuable and unique tool for members to connect with service providers.”

The conference concluded with a tour of Medline Industries’ facility in Southhaven, MS. There the attendees saw a 1.2-million-square-foot, medical-grade distribution center that serves over 1,000 healthcare facilities in the region. Next year’s TRSA Healthcare Conference will be held at the Westin Buckhead in Atlanta on Nov. 13-14, 2024.

Boehringer Ingelheim and IBM announced an agreement that will enable Boehringer to use IBM’s foundation model technologies to discover novel candidate antibodies for the development of efficient therapeutics.

“We are very excited to collaborate with the research team at IBM, who share our vision of making in silico biologic drug discovery a reality,” said Andrew Nixon, Global Head of Biotherapeutics Discovery at Boehringer Ingelheim. “I am confident that by joining forces with IBM scientists we will develop an unprecedented platform for accelerated antibody discovery which will enable Boehringer to develop and deliver new treatments for patients with high unmet need.”

Boehringer will be using an IBM-developed, pre-trained AI model that will be further fine-tuned on additional Boehringer proprietary data. “IBM has been at the forefront of creating generative AI models that extend AI’s impact beyond the domain of language,” said Alessandro Curioni, Vice President Accelerated Discovery, IBM Research. “We are thrilled to now bring IBM’s multimodal foundation model technologies to Boehringer, a leader in the development and manufacturing of antibody-based therapies, to help accelerate the pace at which Boehringer can create new therapeutics.”

Foundation models for antibody discovery

Therapeutic antibodies are central in the treatment of many diseases, including cancer, autoimmune and infectious diseases. Despite major technological advances, the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies covering diverse epitopes remains a highly complex and time-consuming process.

Together, Boehringer and IBM researchers will aim to accelerate the antibody discovery process through in-silico methods. The sequence, structure and molecular profile information of disease-relevant targets as well as success criteria for therapeutically relevant antibody molecules, like affinity, specificity and developability will form the basis for the in-silico generation of new human antibody sequences. These methods rely on new IBM foundation model technologies, designed to increase the speed and efficiency of antibody discovery and quality of predicted antibody candidates.

IBM’s foundation model technologies, which have demonstrated success in generating biologics and small molecules with relevant target affinities, are used to design antibody candidates for the defined targets which are subsequently screened with AI-enhanced simulation to select and refine the best binders for the target. In a validation step, Boehringer Ingelheim will produce in mini-scales and experimentally assess the antibody candidates. Moving forward, the results from the laboratory experiments will be used to improve the in-silico methods via feedback loops.

By collaborating with leading academic and industry partners, Boehringer is building a leading digital ecosystem to enable the acceleration of drug discovery and development and create new breakthrough opportunities to transform patients’ lives.

This work also serves as the latest in IBM’s efforts to use generative AI and foundation models to accelerate discovery and creation of new biologics and small molecules. Earlier this year, the company’s generative AI model efficiently predicted physico-chemical properties of drug-like small molecules.

The IBM biomedical foundation model technologies rely on a wide range of heterogenous, publicly available data sets, including protein-protein interactions and drug-target interactions to develop pre-trained models. The pre-trained models are then fine-tuned on specific proprietary data of IBM’s partner to offer newly designed proteins and small molecules with the desired properties.

GE HealthCare announced the release of a new, all-in-one platform of artificial intelligence (AI) apps to support clinicians with breast cancer detection and improved workflow productivity called MyBreastAI Suite. With this initial release, MyBreastAI Suite integrates three AI applications from iCAD including ProFound AI for DBT, SecondLook for 2D Mammography and PowerLook Density Assessment to help support early detection and improve patient outcomes, as well as help radiology departments improve operational productivity.

As the global cancer burden rises, radiologists face increasing challenges such as burnout, workforce attrition, and patient backlogs, placing strain on and testing the resiliency of health systems today. In ongoing efforts to combat breast cancer, the healthcare community remains committed to early detection by leveraging methods, like screening mammography, that have proven to be effective in identifying early breast cancers and reducing breast cancer-specific mortality.¹ However, with breast cancer now surpassing lung cancer as the most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide, clinicians are seeking tools that can address issues related to access, burnout, variability, equity, and cost in breast imaging to elevate and enhance the detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.

The introduction of MyBreastAI Suite aims to address these challenges by providing an all-in-one platform that can seamlessly deploy AI to breast imaging workflow. With this initial release, MyBreastAI Suite integrates three AI applications from iCAD’s ProFound Breast Health Suite, including:

• ProFound AI for DBT: Trained with one of the largest available 3D image datasets, ProFound AI for DBT provides radiologists with crucial information, such as lesion Certainty of Finding and Case Scores, which assists in prioritizing caseloads, clinical decision-making, and may help reduce burnout.
• SecondLook for 2D Mammography: The SecondLook Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) system for mammography is intended to identify and mark regions of interest on screening and diagnostic mammograms from GE HealthCare’s full-field digital mammography (FFDM) systems to bring them to the attention of the radiologist after an initial reading has been completed.
• PowerLook Density Assessment: This tool helps to standardize breast density assessment and reduce variability across multiple radiologists;⁵ simplify and standardize reporting and stratification for clinicians;and enables clinicians to provide women with accurate and reliable breast density assessments based on AI mammogram analysis.

Studies show that the deployment of these digital solutions can assist in prioritizing case load and clinical decision-making. For example, iCAD reader study shows that radiologists reading with ProFound AI for DBT increases reader sensitivity by 8%, increases reader specificity by 6.9%⁸ and decreases reading time by up to 52% compared to without.

Stratasys Ltd., a leader in polymer 3D printing and additive manufacturing solutions announced it has partnered with Siemens Healthineers to carry out a landmark research project designed to develop new state-of-the-art solutions for the advancement of medical imaging phantoms for computed tomography (CT) imaging.

A critical tool in medical imaging and an almost universal resource in hospitals worldwide, CT phantoms are specialized devices used to evaluate and ensure the performance of CT scanners. Designed to simulate certain characteristics of the human body, phantoms enable the assessment of various core metrics, including radiation dose and image quality, aiding calibration and safeguarding consistent scanner performance. The joint development leverages Stratasys’ PolyJet™ technology in combination with its unique RadioMatrix™ technology, and Siemens Healthineers’ advanced algorithm aimed at translating scanned patient images into specific material characteristics with radiopacity of human anatomy. The solution will allow for tailored phantom manufacturing and the creation of ultra-realistic human anatomy characteristics with complete radiographic accuracy of patient-specific pathology not previously possible.

This joint project will transform how phantoms can be utilized in the medical field, and in certain cases even enable device manufacturers and academic facilities to replace human cadavers with 3D printed structures. Having this capability enables critical efficiencies and minimizes inevitable human variability. This work will also produce a critical body of research data, providing key insights for advancing CT system algorithms, driving materials development, and unlocking potential new application areas – as well as identifying future research opportunities.

“The current limitations of imaging phantoms have been a longstanding challenge for the radiology community,” said Erez Ben Zvi, Vice President Medical at Stratasys. “This partnership with Siemens Healthineers will enable us to jointly explore the vast possibilities of our radiopaque materials and 3D printing technologies to overcome these barriers.”

Beginning with the manufacturing of 3D printed phantoms for smaller-scale anatomies of the head and neck region, the research will involve the production of progressively larger and complex anatomies – leading up to the Phase One endpoint of 3D printing a heart model and of an entire human torso with complete radiographic accuracy.

“Knowledge gained from this project provides a breakthrough in medical imaging that will open up new avenues for uses when it comes to 3D printing and imaging,” said Lampros Theodorakis, Head of Computed Tomography Product & Clinical Marketing at Siemens Healthineers. “We are excited about the opportunities ahead of us as a result of this partnership and believe it will have long-term impacts for medical and academic applications.”