Telepathology is becoming more of a mainstream option for medical diagnostics. It is fast, secure, and less expensive than an in-person approach that is currently in place.
Telepathology scanners allow for faster, accurate diagnosis and treatments to be performed remotely. They also make room for a more inclusive approach to healthcare. It makes it easier to diagnose and treat patients that live in rural areas or have mobility issues, scans are interpreted from the comfort of your own home, this avoids unnecessary visits to healthcare facilities that may be far away.
With specialized tools, such as a mobile camera and better applications, a new world of mobile-based telepathology is coming to life before our eyes.
How do Telepathology Scanners work?
Telepathology scanners create digital scans of tissue slides that are viewed and studied by a pathologist to provide an accurate diagnostic interpretation. Images are later encrypted and stored in a database that can be accessed by other healthcare practitioners. For example, telepathology images can be easily viewed together with radiology images, this alone enhances the diagnostics for both departments.
Having patient information not only helps ensure a simultaneous process but also allows for more complete care for any patient, whether it’s an emergency or a routine check-up. By allowing a database to be accessible for patients and physicians, patients will be 100% involved in their procedures and diagnosis. This encourages them to ask questions and find ways to care for their well-being while at home.
An individual’s health is not going to be an unknown subject anymore. One will know everything about his or her own health whenever he or she will need to know. It is our priority to partner with medical groups in this process.
Virtual Slide, Real-time and Image-Based Systems
Virtual slide telepathology systems scan an entire slide. Image-based systems create a single image of a slide. Real-time telepathology allows the pathologist to manipulate slides remotely.
Pros of Using Telepathology Scanners
Telepathology allows for faster diagnoses and treatments. Integrating information to be exchanged between doctors in different specializations, and for the storage of patient information to be easy and secure. Also, once implemented telepathology is less expensive than the traditional system.
Doctors and patients can get second opinions more easily since physicians can access patients’ databases whenever they need to and information is easily shared.
Turnaround times
Telepathology can help reduce human error, it will produce precise results in a short turnaround time. It also makes it faster and easier to share medical images through the patient’s database. For example, biopsies can be prepared, magnified, and sent digitally during an operation where a pathologist can provide the surgeon with an immediate diagnosis.
One of the biggest pros patients experience with telepathology is that the remote factor makes it more likely for patients to be tested and diagnosed in just one hospital visit and empowers physicians to understand that not every patient has the same mobility abilities, therefore, remote systems are needed.
Usually, a patient would have to check themselves in a healthcare facility for an initial assessment and on the date of the biopsy, come back to get results and discuss final treatment. Although this process works at the moment, it is not practical or inclusive and again, can be very expensive and time consuming.
As in any other healthcare scenario, time is the most important aspect. Patients deserve to have a clear view of how long their process is going to take, they also deserve a healthcare system that works to the best of its abilities to provide them with a solution and a plan as soon as possible.
Telepathology makes this possible every day.
Organ Procurement Organizations
Specialists Direct’s telepathology solutions have enabled organ procurement organizations to transplant more organs and save more lives. How? By allowing 24/7 real-time access to our board-certified pathologists with transplant experience.
Organ procurement organizations paired with Specialist Direct can get accurate liver and kidney biopsy interpretations which reduces organ discard rates and expedites biopsies to be digitalized and interpreted for organ suitability to quickly spot infections or other issues that may come across.
Knowing this information, we can come to the importance of telepathology in America. We believe that the most important one might be that it doesn’t matter where you are or what your needs may be, Specialist Direct can meet them.
We are committed to change – change that allows more people to have access to the healthcare they need, change that makes patients feel safe and heard, and change that allows us to provide you with a better quality of life.
Let’s allow technology to lead the medical field towards a more inclusive future, a future that comprehends that everybody is different, that all of our needs are different, and that we all come from different backgrounds.
Many studies have shown that telepathology is safe and feasible and they also highlight the importance of training and knowing all the possible outcomes, here at Specialist Direct we have a network of U.S Board-certified physicians, and we continuously work on bringing the best care to our partners in any service we offer. Contact us today for a free consultation so that you can learn about our benefits today.
