The Pathologist, September, 2021: Success Through Centralization? The Path to Realizing Digital Pathology’s True Value
By Flagship Biosciences Team Members: Geoffrey Metcalf, Meredith James, and Roberto Gianani
Digital pathology’s benefits have been widely discussed – from alleviating staffing shortages to accelerating turnaround times; from increased consistency and accuracy to innovative teaching tools. But, in practice, those benefits have proven elusive. Why?
At its most intensive implementation, digital pathology has the potential to support primary clinical diagnosis. At a less intensive level, it can be used in targeted precision medicine applications, particularly in the area of immunohistochemistry tissue diagnostics. In all cases, though, the burdens of digitizing often outweigh the benefits – mainly because responsibility for the system’s performance rests with the local laboratory. Though many companies have created effective tools for managing slide images and streamlining workflow, they have done little to relieve the most time-intensive burden: the creation, validation, and maintenance of image analysis tools and diagnostic algorithms…
Geoffrey Metcalf – VP Clinical Diagnostics at Flagship Biosciences
Meredith James – Chief Commercial Officer at Flagship Biosciences
Roberto Gianani – Medical Director and Chief Medical Officer at Flagship Biosciences