RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Update on the current opinion, status and future development of digital pathology in Switzerland in light of COVID-19
JF Journal of Clinical Pathology
JO J Clin Pathol
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Association of Clinical Pathologists
SP 687
OP 689
DO 10.1136/jclinpath-2021-207768
VO 75
IS 10
A1 Viktor Hendrik Koelzer
A1 Rainer Grobholz
A1 Inti Zlobec
A1 Andrew Janowczyk
A1 ,
YR 2022
UL http://jcp.bmj.com/content/75/10/687.abstract
AB Aims The transition from analogue to digital pathology (DP) in Switzerland has coincided with the COVID-19 crisis. The Swiss Digital Pathology Consortium conducted a national survey to assess the experience of pathologists in dealing with the challenges of the pandemic and how this has influenced the outlook and adoption of DP.Methods A survey containing 20 questions relating to DP, personal experiences and challenges during the pandemic was addressed to Swiss pathologists at different experience stages in private practice, community and university hospitals.Results All 74 respondents were pathologists, with 81.1% reporting more than 5 years of diagnostic service experience. 32.5% reported having read 100 digital slides or more in a diagnostic context. 39.2% reported using whole slide imaging systems at their primary workplace. Key DP use cases before the COVID-19 lockdown were tumour boards (39.2%), education (60.8%) and research (44.6%), with DP used for primary diagnosis in 13.5%. During the COVID-19 crisis, the use of DP for primary diagnostics more than doubled (30% vs 13.5%), with internal consults as important drivers (22.5% vs 16.5%), while research use (25% vs 44.6%) and external consults (17.5% vs 41.9%) strongly decreased. Key challenges identified included a lack of established standard operating procedures and availability of specialised hardware and software.Conclusions This survey indicates that the crisis acted as a catalyst in promoting DP adoption in centres where basic workflows were already established while posing major technical and organisational challenges in institutions that were at an early stage of DP implementation.All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.