Digital Pathology

Pathologists are stranded in the analog world. The healthcare IT innovation necessary to transform this discipline have been lacking. Today there is a shortage of pathologists, especially sub-specialty pathologists. With the adoption of Digital Pathology solutions Pathology enterprises with realize better accuracy through analytical toolsets, more efficiency through automated workflows, and greater accessibility through remote collaboration. Our digital pathology technology will help decrease costs and improve quality in healthcare by:

• Automating the pathology workflow, from referral to billing
• Improving accuracy by connecting specialists to difficult cases and through the potential use of Computer Assisted Diagnosis (CAD)
• Optimizing pathologists time by enabling more cases per day
• Limiting the risk to the patient by having life saving information faster
• Increased fidelity of data through electronic storage and preservation

Harris Capabilities at Work:

Harris Corporation has supported the transition to digital in other industries. Just as radiology and pathology still do today, intelligence analysts for the United States Government once viewed imagery using light tables and magnification. Harris digitized this process, overcoming the technical barriers of managing very large images, and delivering a complete workflow solution. This change was transformative for the customer organization. Analysts around the world were able to simultaneously view and manipulate the same image. The analyst workflows were automated, improving productivity and reduce errors. Finally, analysis tools like change detection were added to aide the human decisions and improve accuracy. Decisions were made based on more timely and more accurate data, and outcomes improved.

Transforming the Enterprise

Similar to our experience in the intelligence community, our ability to move very large image files around the globe at multiple security levels will transform the pathology enterprise. Pathologists now rely almost exclusively on glass slides. Collaboration with other physicians (e.g. reference reads) is often necessary and the only means to accomplish this is through shipping the physicals slides between facilities. Patients often have to wait weeks for second opinions while glass slides are shipped (and sometime lost or broken).

Harris has overcome the same technical barriers which are preventing digital pathology from becoming a reality. Similar to the intelligence community, digitization is the enabler for transforming the pathology enterprise: better accuracy will be provided through analytical toolsets, more efficiency will be provided through automated workflows, and greater accessibility will be provided through remote collaboration.

More accurate diagnoses will also result, as the world leading experts in specific diseases can be more easily accessed. It will also ease the burden on the primary pathologists, as they need not always be in the same physical location as the glass slides with the tissue sample. The pathologist might be in another hospital, at home, or on travel, and still be able to perform their job. They may also collaborate with other pathologists or laboratory technicians using a suite of collaboration mechanisms that Harris has integrated.

For additional technical information on Remote Digital Pathology, click here.

For additional capabilities inquiries, please contact:

Jim Traficant
Vice President, Harris Healthcare Solutions
Email: healthcare-it@harris.com
Phone: 703.610.4308