Anatomic Pathology has been experiencing a major paradigm shift over the past several years as digital technology provides new ways of performing the daily work. Changes in workflow are affecting all aspects of pathology, whether clinical, research or education.
The early years of whole-slide-scanning offered academic institutions a way to provide teaching sets, resident collections and publication images without requiring technical staff to perform additional recuts, staining procedures and handling of blocks and slides. While there was indeed clinical utilization of telepathology techniques as far back as 19681, widespread use was limited. Over time, however, the use of telepathology became a way to perform intra-operative consultations, share cases, collaborate and seek clinical opinions from colleagues and outside experts.