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| PKS was founded
in 1996 with the vision of improving cost and quality in healthcare,
and in industry generally, with its novel RippleDown technology.
RippleDown is an exciting new development in "knowledge based"
systems. RippleDown allows customers to build cost effective solutions
for managing human knowledge. Importantly, these systems grow incrementally
and continually learn from human experts. In this way, the system
remains current and useful to the customer, keeping pace with the
changing world. |
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| RippleDown incorporates the early "ripple
down rules" concepts described by PKS
founder Professor Paul Compton,
of the University of New South Wales. PKS has extended this work.
Our first product, LabWizard, is in commercial release, providing
pathologists with tools for enhanced pathology reporting. |
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| PKS' initial R&D effort culminated
in 1998 with the successful trial of LabWizard at Western Diagnostic
Pathology, Perth, Western Australia. This trial demonstrated, for
the first time, that clinical pathologists in a commercial laboratory
setting could build, implement and maintain a suite of knowledge
based products to enhance the interpretation of clinical pathology
reports. This system remains in use, adding value to thousands of
pathology reports each day. PKS' early R&D effort was generously
supported by the Australian Government's AusIndustry program. Subsequently,
PKS launched LabWizard commercially in Australia. |
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| We are proud to have licensed LabWizard
to several leading pathology laboratories, including Clinipath and
General Pathology Laboratories in Perth, St Vincent's Pathology
in Melbourne and Southern Pathology in Wollongong, New South Wales.
LabWizard is now helping many hundreds of patient care decisions
each day. LabWizard processes around 90,000 pathology reports each
month. Most recently PKS has signed an agreement with the Institute
of Medical and Veterinary Science in Adelaide, South Australia.
The IMVS is the leading pathology operation in South Australia. |
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| RippleDown Rules continues to be a major
research focus for the Artificial Intelligence laboratory at the
University of New South Wales under the direction of Professor Compton.
It has been used in various fields apart from Pathology, including
remote sensing, orthodontic advice, handwriting recognition, health
insurance fraud detection, military intelligence, chess, piloting
aircraft, Unix help desk systems, and agricultural crop advice.
PKS continues to enjoy a fruitful collaboration with the University
of New South Wales. |
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| PKS has embarked on an ambitious technology
improvement program with the aim of establishing high quality, portable,
core software components for use in the company's expanding product
range. Major elements of this improvement program included Java
and a range of development methodologies such as Design By Contract".
This effort was rewarded in 2001, with the successful pilot LabWizard
5 in beta release at Clinipath Laboratories in Perth, Western Australia. |
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In 2001, PKS market research demonstrated overwhelming support for
LabWizard-style comments by General Practitioners. Click here to read this
landmark study. |
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