The Design of a Computer Simulator to Emulate Pathology Laboratory Workflows (original) (raw)
Related papers
Diagnostics, 2021
The interest in implementing digital pathology (DP) workflows to obtain whole slide image (WSI) files for diagnostic purposes has increased in the last few years. The increasing performance of technical components and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of systems for primary diagnosis led to increased interest in applying DP workflows. However, despite this revolutionary transition, real world data suggest that a fully digital approach to the histological workflow has been implemented in only a minority of pathology laboratories. The objective of this study is to facilitate the implementation of DP workflows in pathology laboratories, helping those involved in this process of transformation to identify: (a) the scope and the boundaries of the DP transformation; (b) how to introduce automation to reduce errors; (c) how to introduce appropriate quality control to guarantee the safety of the process and (d) the hardware and software needed to implement DP systems inside th...
Anatomic Pathology Laboratory Information Systems
Advances In Anatomic Pathology, 2012
The modern anatomic pathology laboratory depends on a reliable information infrastructure to register specimens, record gross and microscopic findings, regulate laboratory workflow, formulate and sign out report(s), disseminate them to the intended recipients across the whole health system, and support quality assurance measures. This infrastructure is provided by Anatomic Pathology Laboratory Information Systems (APLIS), which have evolved over decades and now are beginning to support evolving technologies like asset tracking and digital imaging. As digital pathology transitions from "the way of the future" to "the way of the present," the APLIS continues to be one of the key effective enablers of the scope and practice of pathology. In this review, we discuss the evolution, necessary components, architecture and functionality of the APLIS that are crucial to today's practicing pathologist and address the demands of emerging trends on the future APLIS.
A real-time dashboard for managing pathology processes
Journal of Pathology Informatics, 2016
Context: The Eastern Ontario Regional Laboratory Association (EORLA) is a newly established association of all the laboratory and pathology departments of Eastern Ontario that currently includes facilities from eight hospitals. All surgical specimens for EORLA are processed in one central location, the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (DPLM) at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH), where the rapid growth and influx of surgical and cytology specimens has created many challenges in ensuring the timely processing of cases and reports. Although the entire process is maintained and tracked in a clinical information system, this system lacks pre-emptive warnings that can help management address issues as they arise. Aims: Dashboard technology provides automated, real-time visual clues that could be used to alert management when a case or specimen is not being processed within predefined time frames. We describe the development of a dashboard helping pathology clinical management to make informed decisions on specimen allocation and tracking. Methods: The dashboard was designed and developed in two phases, following a prototyping approach. The first prototype of the dashboard helped monitor and manage pathology processes at the DPLM. Results: The use of this dashboard helped to uncover operational inefficiencies and contributed to an improvement of turnaround time within The Ottawa Hospital's DPML. It also allowed the discovery of additional requirements, leading to a second prototype that provides finer-grained, real-time information about individual cases and specimens. Conclusion: We successfully developed a dashboard that enables managers to address delays and bottlenecks in specimen allocation and tracking. This support ensures that pathology reports are provided within time frame standards required for high-quality patient care. Given the importance of rapid diagnostics for a number of diseases, the use of real-time dashboards within pathology departments could contribute to improving the quality of patient care beyond EORLA's.
A Stochastic Simulation Model for Representing a Clinical Pathology Laboratory Workout
2007
In the health and hospital field the use of simul ation techniques is more and more wide spreading to improve the system efficiency and reduce the costs. Therefore the high uncertainty of this system typo logy, characterised by a high human incidence, does not a llow the building of a "classic" physical model, re quiring precise and repetitive rules, but
The clinical workstation as a means of improving laboratory use
Clinica Chimica Acta, 1996
Driven to make timely decisions, doctors may act with less than all of the relevant patient data. Sub-optimal use of clinical laboratory resources can result. Our clinicians' workstation (CWS) is meant to provide doctors and nurses ready access to laboratory results in a form that makes the data easy to review and use. In addition, the workstation provides immediate feedback regarding blood orders, to encourage appropriate clinical practice. Feedback is based on the medical staff's clinical guidelines that have been incorporated into an embedded expert system. CWS also helps blood bank physicians to monitor, review and control requests for special needs such as irradiated products. Challenges to system acceptance await those trying to bring functional decision support to the clinical environment. Among these are barriers to understanding and cooperation posed by departmental boundaries and interacting professional cultures as well as the politics of hospital-based information systems.
Simulation Of Medical Laboratory Operations To Achieve Optimal Resource Allocation
ECMS 2009 Proceedings edited by J. Otamendi, A. Bargiela, J. L. Montes, L. M. Doncel Pedrera, 2009
As competitive pressures increase within the health care sectors of economies worldwide, and especially within the United States, the importance of achieving operational efficiencies to reduce costs and thence to increase profits while keeping and attracting customers steadily increases. Simulation, optimization, time studies, value stream mapping, and process improvement methodologies have long been key allies of the industrial engineer assigned to find and progress along the often difficult and challenging road leading to such efficiencies; experienced industrial engineers know these methodologies work better synergistically than individually. The presentation here, and undertaken collaboratively between the medical laboratory (client) and the industrial engineering service company (consultant), concentrates primarily on the use and achievements of discrete-event process simulation and its allied industrial-engineering techniques in improving the operations of a medical testing laboratory, and hence its services to its clients, both hospitals and clinics.