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6th ESACP Congress, Heidelberg, April 7-11, 1999 |
A058
Introduction:
Telepathology as a subset of the growing field of telemedicine is becoming
an established method of consultation.Currently available systems, though,
are still under development and subject to limitations concerning usability
and resources necessary for their implementation. Therefore the aim of this
paper is toevaluate these systems in a real-life, clinical setting.
Material & Methods:
Four vendors of telepathology systems(Nikon, Zeiss, Olympus, Leica) are
evaluated for a 6 to 8 week period. Server units located at the surgical
department areconnected to client units at the pathology department using a
1O Mbit local area network. Evaluation focuses on features, usability and
connectivity and is carried out by an interdisciplinary team including
surgeons, pathologists and medical computer scientists.
Preliminary Results:
At this time two PC-based systems have been evaluated. While the hardware
(microscope, video-capture) seems to be very reliable, the software is still
under development. One system provided a feature-rich environment with
built-in videoconferencing, multiuser access and image caching, but had
limitations in achieving remote control over focus and lighting. The other
system concentrated on a limited set of features but achieved stable
microscope control. Practical usability was limited in one system by a user
interface not conforming to Windows standards. Means for standardized data
exchange have not been implemented yet.
Conclusions:
The reviewed telepathology systems are still under development. A tradeoff
between features, ease-of-use and stability should be achieved. Major efforts
are necessary to improve the flexibility of the software to reflect the
clinical workflow. To reach this goal clinical users should be closely
integrated into the software development process.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF CURRENTLY AVAILABLE COMMERCIAL TELEPATHOLOGY
SYSTEMS
Ganslandt T 1, Korsching E 2, Boecker W 2, Spiegel HU 1,
Senninger N 1
1) Klinik & Poliklinik für Allgemeine Chirugie, WWU Münster,Germany,
2) Gerhard-Domagk-Institut für Pathologie, WWU Münster,Germany