By Jack Beaudoin, EditorIRVINE, CA – Even as it polished off the first round of an estimated $3.5 million in capital raising, Trestle Holdings has announced several major contracts with healthcare providers in the last month, bolstering its reputation as a company to watch in 2005.The former University of Southern California incubator project, which has undergone several versions of management since its spin-off, recently announced major telemedicine deals with The Children's Hospital in Denver, the Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud Foundation's MeduNet program in Saudi Arabia, and Henry Ford Health System (see related story, page 23).Not bad for a company that emerged in late 2003. But as its leadership likes to point out, Trestle may be young, but its product is definitely mature."We're about a year into launching a technology with a distinguished history as a leader in the field," explains Trestle President Maurizo Vecchione.Key to Trestle's recent success is its telepathology solutions. Conventional wisdom used to be that unlike other telemedicine applications, such as second opinions or e-consultations, pathology was so intimately tied to "traversing the tissue" that it would be impossible to move from an analog to digital process. Trestle's digital pathology solution has gone a long way to convince pathologists that it can be done. In addition to mimicking the "analog connections" between pathologist and tissue samples, Vecchione says the technology can actually improve analysis by permitting several pathologists or clinicians to view the sample at the same time, permit better application of computer-assisted diagnostics, and annotate, document and integrate pathological studies into existing lab information systems.At The Children's Hospital, a not-for-profit pediatric healthcare network, Trestle's MedMicro Internet-based slide-viewing solution will aid physicians in remotely diagnosing and treating tumors. "I looked at a slide in California from my office computer, and the image quality was comparable to sitting down at a microscope in our lab," said Joel Haas, MD, chair of the hospital pathology department."The last two years have been somewhat of an incubation process," Vecchione says. "Now we are starting to see an emergence into the mainstream – we're not just talking about early adopters." The company identifies two growth strategies in 2005. The first strategy is to provide hardware-software services in an ASP model called ePathnet. The second strategy is to continue its global marketing, because Vecchione believes that ultimately a strong international market will boost domestic sales. Widely deployed telepathology systems can obliterate the geographic limits on specialty clinics and hospitals in the United States, allowing them to market and sell their special services to hospitals abroad. nMore at HealthcareITNews.comle Connect: trestle 0205