ArticleDigital health
Frozen section telepathology service: Efficiency and benefits of an e-health policy in South Tyrol.
Article in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Second Opinion in the Italian Organ Procurement Transplantation: The Pathologist Is In.Clinics and practice · 2023Article
- Review
- Validation of Remote Digital Pathology based diagnostic reporting of Frozen Sections from home.Journal of pathology informatics · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Objective/Background: Telepathology has been widely adopted to allow intraoperative pathology examinations to be performed remotely and for obtaining second opinion teleconsultation. In the Italian northern region of South Tyrol, the widespread geographical distances and consequent cost for the health system of having a travelling pathologist cover intraoperative consultations in peripheral hospitals was a key driver for the implementation of a telepathology system. Methods: In 2010, four Menarini D-Sight whole slide scanners to digitize entire pathology slides were placed in the peripheral hospitals of Merano, Bressanone, Brunico, and in the hub hospital of Bolzano. Digital workstations were also installed to allow pathologists to remotely perform intraoperative consultations with digital slides. This study reviews the outcome after 12 years of telepathology for this intended clinical use. Results: After an initial validation phase with 100 cases which yielded a sensitivity of 65% (CI 43-84%) and specificity of 100% (CI 95-100%), there were 2058 intraoperative consultations handled by telepathology. The cases evaluated were mainly breast sentinel lymph nodes, followed by urological, gynecological and general surgical pathology frozen section specimens. There were no false-positive cases and 165 (8%) false-negative cases, yielding an overall sensitivity and specificity of 65% (CI 61-69%) and 100% (CI 99-100%), respectively. Conclusion: Telepathology is reliable for remote intraoperative diagnosis and, despite technical issues and initial acquaintance issues, proved beneficial for patient care in satellite hospitals, improved standardization, promoted innovation, and resulted in cost savings for the health system.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.