What do you get when you combine the power of technology with pathology? The emerging field of telepathology.
Falling under the broad umbrella of telemedicine, telepathology connects pathologists in remote locations through sophisticated microscope systems, computers and the Internet, allowing pathologists to view slides from wherever they are.
The technology promises pathologists a new career-development avenue. “Through telepathology, pathologists can have experiences with many cases that they would never see without telepathology,” says Yukako Yagi, director of telepathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). “They can also get other people's opinion easier than [with] real glass-slide-based consultations.”
While there are still challenges associated with sending, viewing and storing files remotely, IBM, Apollo Telemedicine, Trestle and other companies are developing solutions that could help spark a telepathology revolution in coming years. For instance, IBM supercomputers installed at Mayo Clinic make storing medical information in digital format more feasible. Apollo Telemedicine's three-pronged approach to telepathology features image-management systems, desktop videoconferencing and remote microscope robotics. And Trestle has a digital slide system, a live Internet microscope and a network telemedicine system on the market.
“Digital data can be used for education, clinical trials, clinical services, second opinions and a wide variety of other pathology services,” says Dr. Richard Bakalar, an IBM senior clinical-solutions specialist and former US Navy physician involved with the Navy's telemedicine programs.
Telepathology in Action
UPMC has been putting telepathology to use for more than a year. The center uses robotic/real-time telepathology to make diagnoses during surgeries. During an operation, a technician takes a specimen from the patient, prepares a slide and puts it on the telepathology system for a doctor to review remotely. The pathologists in one location, for example, can control a digital microscope trained on the live image from another location.
“Then the pathologist...makes a diagnosis,” Yagi says. “With telepathology, pathologists don't need to go back and forth between hospitals. That's a big advantage for UPMC, which has 19 remote hospitals.”
Telepathology also comes into play when UPMC provides consultations on transplant cases in Italy, which has few organ transplant pathology specialists. The technology allows doctors there to obtain a second opinion from UPMC.
“Patients can get more appropriate treatment and diagnosis when doctors rely on telepathology and can make sure the current treatment and diagnosis are really OK,” Yagi says.
Telepathology Training
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued standards for directing patient care via telemedicine. However, no specific credentialing and privileging requirements are currently in place regarding consultative services, such as second opinions.
Be that as it may, experts say telepathology technology presents a bit of a learning curve. Robotic telepathology requires systems training. However, working with virtual (digitized) slides just requires familiarizing yourself with reading slides in a different format. But in every case, pathologists need to know that if the two-dimensional digital image they're viewing doesn't provide enough detail, they need to request a glass slide.
Telepathology Challenges
Despite the prospect of more remote collaboration among lab professionals, there are still challenges that will prevent telepathology from becoming widespread. For example, telepathology allows the practitioner to view only a small portion of a slide at once -- a lengthy process that depends on fast, stable Internet connections.
Virtual slides present their own challenges. While the pathologist is free from the microscope and can manipulate the data set with software, producing the necessary image resolution requires large file sizes that can take up to 20 minutes a slide to digitize.
“Even with its limitations, telepathology has become popular for second opinions and in some locations to temporarily balance workloads when there are shortages of pathologists in one location for a period of time,” Bakalar says.
This article originally appeared on Monster.com.
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