Five Years of Whole Slide Imaging (WSI): Successes and Frustrations

摘要

Overview: The Oklahoma University departments of Pathology and Cell Biology acquired a slide scanner in 2008 which resides in the surgical pathology suite of Oklahoma University Medical Center. Initial use cases included undergraduate medical education, graduate medical education, consultation archiving and tumor boards. Research uses were also anticipated. Experience: The system was designed with an architecture residing within the Health Science Center data structure, which links loosely to the hospital IT infrastructure, however, the storage server, resided physically within the hospital server space. An initial task force was empowered to specify policies, use protocols and storage structure, file protocols to assist with managing the storage load and to explore means to link cases to clinical data and reports in the LIS. No full time staff however, were devoted exclusively to the system. Consequently at about year five, the initially purchased storage space approached capacity and coping strategies, short of purchasing additional storage were revisited. Frequency of use varied by application. Three of the seven specialty tumor boards use WSI fairly regularly, while the others do not. Research application, including those using advanced image analysis tools, grew from one project in 2008 to more than 10 in 2013, with a total of 20 non-pathology faculty researchers. Publications reporting results currently number over 25.