An article on FierceHealthIT this week tells us that GE Healthcare and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are working on a joint venture to revolutionize pathology.
The project, called Omnyx, is currently being tested in one Canadian and two American hospitals. With a very high-tech digital camera/scanner, samples are digitized fast without quality reduction. The samples can then be integrated into a patient’s electronic medical records. There’s no need to package and ship slides or wait for them to be unpacked and inventoried. Instead, patients can quickly learn their diagnosis.
From the press release: “Digitizing pathology is the next big step for the industry — it’s critical in revolutionizing the practice to keep up with the digital age,” said Sylvia Asa, pathologist-in-chief and medical director at the Omnyx research site University Health Network (Canada). “At the University Health Network, in addition to being more efficient, we will be able to collaborate in new ways, which will be exciting for our doctors and good for our patients who deserve the same level of medical care regardless of their location.”
