Digital Pathology Blog

There is a joke among surgeons and oncologists -- the pathologist at a tumor board is like the guy whose funeral that you are attending; you can't do it without him, but you don't want him saying too much. 

Nearly 2 years ago, our tumor boards went "virtual". Like billions around the world, we scrambled to get Zoom, GoToMeeting, WebEx and other applications up and running to hear each other’s voices and share screens to show radiology and pathology images. We anticipated that by the Summer or Fall we would be back to "normal".

Late last month, the CEOs of Amazon, Buffett and JPMorgan Chase announced they were teaming up to form an independent healthcare company for their employees.

The details were scant and vague but mentioned the new corporation would be “free from profit-making incentives and constraints”. Mr. Buffett is quoted as saying, “The ballooning costs of health care act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy… Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable.”

Probably not the best analogy considering tapeworms are easily treated with oral generic medications that are very low cost.

Telepathology and whole slide imaging have become integrated into pathology laboratories worldwide. With applications in teaching and research well established, it is now recognized that digital pathology has a role in the clinical realm as well. 

Digital pathology provides clear advantages for pathologists’ quality assurance processes and performance evaluations as well as streamlined workflows for consultative expert collaborations and multi-disciplinary tumor boards. With the advancement of artificial intelligence and histopathology analytics, there is no limit to the application of digital techniques to the practice of pathology.