Digital Pathology and Virtual Microscopy Integration in E-Health Records
Marcial García Rojo, Christel Daniel · IGI Global eBooks · 2011
In anatomic pathology, digital pathology integrates information management systems to manage both digital images and text-based information. Digital pathology allows information sharing for diagnosis, biomedical research and education. Virtual microscopy resulting in digital slides is an outreaching technology in anatomic pathology. Limiting factors in the expansion of virtual microscopy are formidable storage dimension, scanning speed, quality of image and cultural change. Anatomic pathology data and images should be an important part of the patient electronic health records as well as of clinical datawarehouses, epidemiological or biomedical research databases, and platforms dedicated to translational medicine. Integrating anatomic pathology to the “healthcare enterprise” can only be achieved using existing and emerging medical informatics standards like Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM®1), Health Level Seven (HL7®), and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT®), following the recommendations of Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE®).