Five years ago, two key takeaways from a survey of their pathologists sent NorthShore University HealthSystem toward the front lines of a technological revolution: digital pathology.
The team almost unanimously agreed that, first, it was time to consider AI as an aid to microscopic tissue analysis. And second, 73% wanted the flexibility to work remotely at another site or at home, at least sometimes, via telepathology.
It was about 2000 when Yale pathologist John Sinard, MD, PhD, first heard the prediction. “In five years, we won’t be using microscopes,” a respected peer quipped. “We’ll be examining all our slides as digitized images on computer monitors.”
Nearly a quarter-century later, Sinard reports: “I’m at my workstation, and my microscope is sitting right here next to me.”
With more than 7 million digitized slides on hand, the pathology department at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City represents one of the largest repositories of whole slide images in the world. It’s no surprise the library is so large, as it’s been accruing new images since 2008. And with total case volumes exceeding one million slide reads per year, the inventory continues to grow at that scale.
Remember when X-ray abandoned cumbersome film once sleek digital suitors showed up? It happened little by little, not all at once. In much the same way, radiology datasets are leaving cramped hardware spaces for the inexhaustible, ever-flexible expanse of the cloud.
Korak Sarkar, MD, vividly recalls a clinical case that clearly demonstrated the significant impact that enterprise imaging can have on healthcare delivery.
Things are a bit complicated in healthcare, to say the least. Whether it's additional regulations, a competitive market or changing patient demographics, care delivery is becoming more complex every year.
It was a gutsy move even by the standards of the borough that is home to the New York Yankees, the birthplace of hip-hop, and the largest zoo in the East: At just 23 years old, with no direct experience in healthcare, Joel Reisman decided to dive into the deep end of the outpatient medical imaging business in the Bronx.
Radiology and cardiology departments have long produced significant imaging volumes, but the volumes of imaging exams performed in other specialties are now easily surpassing that amount.
With radiology continuing to refine its niche in a rapidly evolving healthcare environment, Sruti Nataraja, MPH, managing director at the Advisory Board Company, believes that one of the major themes coming out the past year is, “The consumer-driven health care market has arrived.”
With the possible exception of diffusion-tensor MRI for concussion in athletes, no clinical imaging procedure stands a chance of bumping information technology-with its attendant ripple effects on regulatory compliance and business performance-off radiology’s figurative front page in 2016.
As the "volume to value" movement reshapes healthcare economics across the U.S., radiology is reminded daily that it is by no means exempt from the new and somewhat nebulous fiscal demands.
Consolidation and change are roiling the healthcare marketplace, and the repercussions are being felt throughout the vendor landscape, including the vibrant imaging IT segment that is so fundamental to the practice of 21st century radiology.
