Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road. - Stewart Brand

There is a technology that has been used in the Histotechnology for many years that is preparing to explode and promises to change all our lives - Digital Imaging. This technology will transform the Pathologists daily workload functions and remove the need for glass slides and the microscope. Is anyone considering the lives of the Histotechnologist? Doesn’t the Imager need a slide to image? Has this really been thought out from the process side?

I think the advancement of this technology is another example of the industry ignoring what really happens in a Histology lab and is assuming a slide is a slide. A “slide” is not the same from lab to lab, not even from day to day in some labs. And how many labs use the exact same equipment and reagents? How is this digital imaging going to transform the Histology process if we continue to ignore the basic principle of Standardization?

If we are going to be asked to provide digital images for diagnosis, would it not be better to produce an image that could be reviewed by multiple sites and Pathologists and provide a basis for collaboration, concordance and consultation? We continue to have “advances” pushed into Histology that do not advance the science of Anatomic Pathology.  Would it not be better for the patient and health care if this technological advance actually reduced costs while providing another valuable link in the electronic record?

I see great uses for this technology in Histotechnology. I would not start with the routine H&E, but with the re-cuts, special stains and IHC.  Once the basic H&E is reviewed, the aforementioned procedures most often produce a qualitative result that could be easily reviewed using the digital image. I know that breast tissue testing (i.e. ER/PR, Her2) are now used in a quantitative way, with the aid of complex software, but wouldn’t it be a great improvement to patient care and process flow to be able to provide the Pathologist with his re-cuts and all staining, post H&E, digitally? Think of the cost and time savings if there were a way to incorporate an imager into the staining instrument. Think of the advantages if the slide could be shared with multiple Pathologists, across multiple sites for instantaneous consultation. Histology results would truly travel at the speed of the Internet.

But wait, do you think a Pathologist outside of your lab will accept the stain quality produced in your lab and make the diagnosis? What do you see as the advantages or disadvantages of digital imaging expanding? How would you use the technology?

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. - Bill Gates
The Histology Lab, as we know it today, is rapidly being transformed and consolidated to create the [...]

It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.-Alan Perlis
The Histology Automation Revolution is coming! the Histology Automation Revolution is coming!
For the past ten years, we in the field have been told to watch for the technology rider to gallop to our labs and announce that new automation is here. The [...]

“The three purposes of thinking: To solve problems, To create opportunities and To enrich the human condition.” - Abraham Lincoln
I recently had the opportunity to visit the wonderful country of South Africa and found that it does not matter whether you are in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Johannesburg or for that matter, any part of this great [...]

“If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow, you get somewhere.” – Henry Ford
The first step of Standardization in Histology, not just in a single lab, was taken when it was decided to use one fixative for routine specimens, 10% Neutral Buffered Formalin (NBF). [...]

Greetings! I recently attended the 34th Annual National Society for Histotechnology Symposium/Convention and I have been thinking just what did I gain from this particular experience. I have participated in many NSH Conventions in the past, but this meeting really seemed to me to be the push towards CHANGE.