It's not too late to register for Pathology Informatics 2011, a conference encompassing the entire breadth of the field that will take place on October 4-7, 2011, in Pittsburgh. The conference is composed of the following components: three workshops, three parallel tracks punctuated by plenary lectures over the course of three and one-half days, 33 scientific presentations selected on the basis of abstract submissions, 30 e-posters, and displays by 42 exhibitors (conference schedule). A total of 42 faculty members will be participating.
On Wednesday, October 5, from 9:00-9:40 a.m. in Pittsburgh, I will be moderating an industry panel that will discuss how to manage the Digital Pathology Showcase. The Showcase will be a head-to-head demonstration of multiple digital pathology systems to be presented at the 2012 Pathology Informatics conference. The date and venue for the 2012 conference is October 9-12, 2012, at the Chicago Hyatt Regency Hotel. Here is some background information about this whole concept evolved:
Pathology Informatics 2010 was held in Boston on September 19-22. At that time and within the planning group, it was decided to launch a digital pathology project that would allow potential purchasers of this technology to assess the various products available in the U.S. marketplace.
A two-year planning cycle for this project was decided upon. The first step, occurring in mid-2011, was the creation of a draft document detailing how the various vendors of digital pathology hardware and software could be compared before an audience of potential buyers. This document was circulated among both vendors and pathologists for several months. Vendor comments and reactions are contained within the document. This draft document, labeled the Digital Pathology Showcase, will be the focus of an industry panel discussion that will be convened at Pathology Informatics 2011 in Pittsburgh on October 5th 2011.
Following this panel and in the latter portion of 2011, a final Digital Pathology Showcase plan will be agreed upon. It will be the basis for the vendor head-to-head demonstrations that will take place at Pathology Informatics 2012 to be held on 8-12 October at the Chicago Hyatt Regency Hotel. Participation in the Vendor Showcase will be offered to all digital pathology companies on a first-come, first-serve basis.
I now am able to present to the readers of Lab Soft News a draft document describing the Digital Pathology Showcase that will be the basis for the upcoming Pittsburgh panel discussion. Please use the "comments" feature of this blog if you want to react to it. I will be happy to carry your ideas to Pittsburgh as the moderator of this session.
A question the vendors who were interviewed for the 2012 Digital Pathology Industry Shcwcase have posed is should there be an award or some framework of a "contest" like in the European Scanner Contest in 2010. Some suggested awards for "best software", "best image quality", "best workflow" and others suggested metrics that would measure speed of acquisition of images, time to diagnosis and GUI (graphical user interface) quality measures. What do you think about this approach?
Posted by: Mike Becich, MD PhD | September 27, 2011 at 06:47 AM
Digital Pathology Showcase, thats sounds great....
Posted by: surgical blog | September 25, 2011 at 02:25 AM