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Software innovation: it’s all about proximity
As Director of development, Henrik Friberger heads up a cross-disciplinary team of 165 staff comprising physicists, application developers, testers, imaging specialists and UX engineers. Working alongside colleagues from product management and the research and machine learning departments, they’re the engine-room of technology innovation at RaySearch, driving cutting-edge functionality for upcoming software releases as well as the introduction of new products.
Technology and innovation notwithstanding, it’s the close relationship with clinical customers that sets RaySearch apart – whether jointly developing new products and functionality with large research hospitals or providing the support and service that smaller clinics need to deliver enhanced patient outcomes. “Proximity to the clinical customer is paramount in order to understand what the enduser needs – and why,” says Friberger.
Equally, there’s a requirement to innovate at pace to meet the needs of existing users while supporting new-customer acquisition – an imperative that informs day-to-day activity across the development program. “I don’t have to manufacture that urgency,” adds Friberger, “because development staff are part of the collective conversation with clinical customers and, in turn, are extensively involved in shaping, prioritizing and owning what we do in terms of the product roadmaps.”
INNOVATING AT PACE Throughout 2020, Friberger and his team registered impressive progress on product innovation – and along multiple coordinates. The launch of the RayCommand ®* treatment control system (TCS), the latest extension of the RaySearch product line, is a case in point. For end-users, RayCommand offers unified management and control of key systems in the treatment room – the treatment machine, treatment couch, imaging systems and patient positioning devices. As such, that means a more consistent user experience and enhanced workflow efficiency regardless of the type of treatment machine. That “machine agnosticism” will, more broadly, make life easier for new-entrant radiotherapy equipment vendors, allowing them to integrate RayCommand rather than developing their own TCS from scratch.
It was also a big year for RayStation®*, with the 10B* release in December incorporating support for high-doserate brachytherapy planning. This new module is already opening up sales conversations with a diverse and established user base – not surprising given that around onethird of clinics that provide external-beam radiotherapy also offer brachytherapy services. “A single treatment planning system that can handle both external-beam and brachy modalities is a big advantage for the clinics in terms of staff training, workflow efficiency and IT support,” notes Friberger.
Another 2020 development that looks set to yield new sales conversations this year and beyond is the launch of a dedicated interface between the RayCare ®* oncology information system (OIS) and Varian’s TrueBeam linear accelerators. Part of the RayCare 4B* release, this interop-
erability will significantly expand the market potential of RayCare, allowing customers to streamline their workflows with a next-generation OIS that can schedule radiation therapy sessions and track treatment progress across a suite of treatment machines from multiple OEM vendors – Varian included.
In a similar vein is RaySearch’s collaboration with US radiotherapy equipment maker Accuray, with the partners working together to implement RayStation and RayCare as a unified treatment planning system and OIS for the latter’s robotic CyberKnife treatment machine. That functionality is on track for general release later this year, with the Swiss Medical Network, one of Switzerland’s largest private clinic groups, likely to be first among the early-adopting customers to treat patients using the integrated RaySearch®/ CyberKnife® system.
CONVERGENT THINKING Ongoing, the convergence and optimization of fragmented cancer-care workflows remains a core objective for the RaySearch development group. A “lighthouse customer” in this regard is MedAustron, an Austrian cancer center specializing in proton and carbon-ion therapy and related research. With the commissioning of a third treatment room well advanced at its facility south of Vienna, MedAustron is now seeking to rearchitect its approach to treatment management, planning and delivery so that it’s in position to scale up patient throughput by 50% from 2022. To deliver this growth, MedAustron, which has been using RayStation for treatment planning since 2016, will migrate to an “all-RaySearch” software installation – replacing its current custom OIS with RayCare and using the RayCommand TCS to provide the link between RayCare and RayStation. “Our job is to make life easier for our customers,” explains Friberger, “so what we are building for MedAustron is a suite of functionality to glue together RayStation, RayCare and RayCommand into a unified user experience – three products effectively appearing as one.” Significantly, this is also general-purpose functionality that will be suitable for other clinical customers with appropriate workflow reconfiguration.
EMBRACING CHANGE Given the operational challenges arising from the COVID-19 restrictions, Friberger is also keen to formally acknowledge the teamwork, spirit and adaptability of his staff over the past 12 months. “I’ve been impressed with the way the development group has embraced our necessarily modified ways of working and collaborating during this period – both internally and with external partners. They’ve been as creative, resourceful and dedicated as always. It’s important to celebrate that.”
