Digital Pathology Blog

As a medical student/intern/resident in the early to mid-1990s, most of the pathologists I was exposed to in a university/medical center setting were pathologists who were-first and primarily-general pathologists, general surgical pathologists and clinical pathologists. Everyone did everything in terms of surgical pathology subspecialties, with a few notable exceptions (bone marrow examinations and liver biopsies, depending on the nature of the case and the particular pathologist assigned the case). In addition, the staff pathologists I worked with also covered some area of the clinical laboratory and were responsible for any issues referred from house staff during evening and weekend call.

Tumor boards were created with worthy objectives in mind – to share knowledge, improve current patient care, and prepare/educate residents & fellows for their future practices. Tumor boards are also a requirement for cancer center accreditation, hence a necessary cost of doing business.

Preparing for tumor boards, however, is too often an onerous task fraught with time delays, rework, and cumbersome, inflexible presentation methods. After your support staff pulls reports, retrieves slides, and brings them to you, do you spend hours photographing and taking notes of the key points you then load into a PowerPoint to present for each case? Do you ever get to your tumor boards and find that another view of the slide might better answer the clinician’s question? 

When reviewing previous slides for your patient’s current case or when preparing for tumor boards, are you spending precious time and resources having your staff retrieve or recut slides? Do slides get lost or damaged causing more delays in your ability to expedite your case? Management of slide and block archives is a challenge for all anatomic pathology laboratories. How can implementing a robust digital pathology program help you make the best use of your time and resources? 

Ever had a good idea that you wanted to see implemented in your organization? Ever had that idea actually implemented and succeed and make a difference? Or have some of those ideas been criticized by personal attacks, death by delay, folks making excuses that the problem that needs to be fixed does not exist or that the solution was tried before and did not work?

In a previous blog post, we shared key steps to a successful digital pathology system implementation. This is the second article of a two-part series designed to assist you in managing the whole process.

A successful digital pathology system implementation depends upon careful planning and commitment. Most pathologists are hesitant to move from the gold standard of glass slides to a digital image-based platform. Today, however, whole-slide scanners can provide high quality images that allow pathologists increased flexibility for case management and collaboration with other pathologists. As the technology continues to grow, digital pathology will soon become the new gold standard. 


This article is the first in a two-part series to aide in the implementation of a digital pathology system. Using a systematic approach and standard project management principles, you can engage your team and keep your project on track. By working through the following steps, you will increase your chances of a successful system implementation within a reasonable timeframe defined by you and your project team. 

All the recent news about Ebola has likely left no laboratorian unscathed in terms of preparing for the worst – caring for a suspected or confirmed case of the disease - and the necessary laboratory procedures, equipment, disposal and personal protective equipment to consider. 

Many of us are likely considering these issues for the first time, or revisiting them if you are one of us who lived through the anthrax attacks of September, 2001. Lab readiness - from safety hoods, to training and resources, have all been called into question. Realistically, most of us do not have the personnel, training or equipment to deal with this type of scenario.