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Enterprise Implementation of Digital Pathology: Feasibility, Challenges, and Opportunities

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Abstract

Digital pathology is becoming technically possible to implement for routine pathology work. At our institution, we have been using digital pathology for second opinion intraoperative consultations for over 10 years. Herein, we describe our experience in converting to a digital pathology platform for primary pathology diagnosis. We implemented an incremental rollout for digital pathology on subspecialty benches, beginning with cases that contained small amounts of tissue (biopsy specimens). We successfully scanned over 40,000 slides through our digital pathology system. Several lessons (both challenges and opportunities) were learned through this implementation. A successful conversion to digital pathology requires pre-imaging adjustments, integrated software and post-imaging evaluations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Division of Pathology Informatics, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Presbyterian Hospital, A610, 200 Lothrop Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213-2546, USA

    DJ Hartman & L Pantanowitz

  2. Clinical Department Systems, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, 15213, PA, USA

    JS McHugh, AL Piccoli, MJ OLeary & GR Lauro

Authors
  1. DJ Hartman
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  2. L Pantanowitz
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  3. JS McHugh
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  4. AL Piccoli
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  5. MJ OLeary
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  6. GR Lauro
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to DJ Hartman.

Additional information

This work was completed while Gonzalo Romero Lauro was employed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

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Hartman, D., Pantanowitz, L., McHugh, J. et al. Enterprise Implementation of Digital Pathology: Feasibility, Challenges, and Opportunities. J Digit Imaging 30, 555–560 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-017-9946-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-017-9946-9

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