The Future Belongs to Digital Pathology

Advances in artificial intelligence are slowly transforming the specialty, much the way radiology is being transformed by similar advances in digital technology.John Halamka, M.D., president, Mayo Clinic Platform, and Paul Cerrato, senior research analyst and communications specialist, Mayo Clinic Platform, wrote this article.Any patient who faces a potential cancer diagnosis knows how important an accurate, timely pathology report is. Similarly, surgeons often require fast pathology results when they are performing a delicate procedure to determine their course of action during an operation. New technological developments are poised to meet the needs of patients and clinicians alike.AI can improve pathology practice in numerous ways. The right digital tools can automate several repetitive tasks, including the detection of small foci. It can also help improve the staging of many malignancies, make the workflow process more efficient, and help classify images, which in turn gives pathologists a “second set of eyes”. And those “eyes” do not grow tired at the end of a long day or feel stressed out from too much work.Such capabilities have far-reaching implications. With the right scanning hardware and the proper viewer software, pathologists and technicians can easily view and store whole slide images (WSIs). That view is markedly different from what they see through a microscope, which only allows a narrow field of view. In addition, digitization allows pathologist...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs