Informatics

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Revision as of 01:56, 1 August 2011 by Michael (talk | contribs) (+wikis section)
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Informatics is the management of information.

Pathologists, unfortunately, only have abysmal tools for this job.

The two main information systems (Softpath and CoPath) are pathetic and look like they are out of the early 1990s.

Software in use at pathology departments

Information systems

  • Softpath - a really crusty 'ol turd. It is hard to believe people buy licenses for this.
  • CoPath - pathetic software... considered state-of-the-art. It sucks less than Softpath.

Dictation

Database

Pathology wikis

  • Wiki use for the dissemination of pathology knowledge is increasing.
  • In the general sphere, Wikipedia is dominating a will probably continue to do so.[1]

Open source

Open source in pathology appears to be a long way off. One paper,[2] gives me a bit of hope -- though I think this is a voice in the wilderness.

IMHO, most pathologists understand very little about computers and those that think they know something often know precious little.

The radiologists are more on the ball here, e.g. UCLA's OpenSourcePACS.[3]

References

  1. Heilman, JM.; Kemmann, E.; Bonert, M.; Chatterjee, A.; Ragar, B.; Beards, GM.; Iberri, DJ.; Harvey, M. et al. (2011). "Wikipedia: a key tool for global public health promotion.". J Med Internet Res 13 (1): e14. doi:10.2196/jmir.1589. PMID 21282098.
  2. Rubin A (December 2004). "An open pathology computer system". J. Clin. Pathol. 57 (12): 1252–3. doi:10.1136/jcp.2004.020826. PMC 1770514. PMID 15563662. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770514/.
  3. Bui, AA.; Morioka, C.; Dionisio, JD.; Johnson, DB.; Sinha, U.; Ardekani, S.; Taira, RK.; Aberle, DR. et al. (Jan 2007). "OpenSourcePACS: an extensible infrastructure for medical image management.". IEEE Trans Inf Technol Biomed 11 (1): 94-109. PMID 17249408.