This article is part of the supplement: Proceedings of the 10th European Congress on Telepathology and 4th International Congress on Virtual Microscopy
Proceedings
Recent advances in standards for collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology
1 ADICAP - INSERM, UMR_S 872 eq20 Paris, F-75006, France
2 ASIP Santé, 9 rue Georges Pitard – 75015 Paris, France
3 Hospital General de Ciudad Real, Department of Pathology, 13005 Ciudad Real, Spain
4 Tribvn, 39 rue Louveau 92320 Châtillon, France
5 National Center of Pathology and Vilnius University, P. Baublio 5, Vilnius, Lithuania
6 North Shore Medical Center, Department of Pathology, 81 Highland Ave. Salem, MA 01970, USA
7 University of Udine, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, via delle Scienze 206 33100 Udine, Italy
Diagnostic Pathology 2011, 6(Suppl 1):S17 doi:10.1186/1746-1596-6-S1-S17
Published: 30 March 2011Abstract
Context
Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology refers to the use of information technology that supports the creation and sharing or exchange of information, including data and images, during the complex workflow performed in an Anatomic Pathology department from specimen reception to report transmission and exploitation. Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology can only be fully achieved using medical informatics standards. The goal of the international integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative is precisely specifying how medical informatics standards should be implemented to meet specific health care needs and making systems integration more efficient and less expensive.
Objective
To define the best use of medical informatics standards in order to share and exchange machine-readable structured reports and their evidences (including whole slide images) within hospitals and across healthcare facilities.
Methods
Specific working groups dedicated to Anatomy Pathology within multiple standards organizations defined standard-based data structures for Anatomic Pathology reports and images as well as informatic transactions in order to integrate Anatomic Pathology information into the electronic healthcare enterprise.
Results
The DICOM supplements 122 and 145 provide flexible object information definitions dedicated respectively to specimen description and Whole Slide Image acquisition, storage and display. The content profile “Anatomic Pathology Structured Report” (APSR) provides standard templates for structured reports in which textual observations may be bound to digital images or regions of interest. Anatomic Pathology observations are encoded using an international controlled vocabulary defined by the IHE Anatomic Pathology domain that is currently being mapped to SNOMED CT concepts.
Conclusion
Recent advances in standards for Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology are a unique opportunity to share or exchange Anatomic Pathology structured reports that are interoperable at an international level. The use of machine-readable format of APSR supports the development of decision support as well as secondary use of Anatomic Pathology information for epidemiology or clinical research.
