White Paper argues that pathology services should design their IT infrastructure to allow pathology services maximum future organisational flexibility
The future of pathology services IT is likely to be far more complex and unpredictable than current roadmaps are assuming. Change is likely to come from a number of different directions, much of it outside the pathology service itself.
The effect of this change, which will be cumulative, could gridlock future health service modernisation unless pathology services take steps to address it directly now.
These are the main findings of a white paper - Modernising Pathology IT: an adaptive approach - from pathology IT specialist Sysmed Solutions.
The white paper argues that pathology services should design their IT infrastructure to allow pathology services maximum future organisational flexibility to respond to changing health service and patient needs.
Every national healthcare administration in Britain and Ireland is engaged in major modernisation of its pathology services.
Typically, dispersed small laboratories located in district general hospitals, mapped out on a pattern often over a hundred years old, are being replaced by managed pathology networks, with large automated regional laboratories at their centre.
This major shift in resources and efficiency is being made possible through a simultaneous modernisation of pathology service IT.
Modernising Pathology IT: an adaptive approach examines developments in pathology technology and trends in future patient and clinical use of emerging diagnostic technologies.
It also looks at the effect of wider health service modernisation, and the likely impact of developments arising out of the National Programme for IT.
The white paper concludes that while pathology services are undergoing major change at present, developments beyond the pathology service are likely to force even more far-reaching change in the near to medium term future. The white paper argues pathology services should factor in these developments in their current modernisation phase to allow healthcare services to stay at the forefront of diagnostic technologies and minimise future costs.
