SPECIAL FEATURE
14 JULY 2019 [ ehealth.eletsonline.com ] The Largest Portal on Healthcare Innovations in Asia and the Middle East
can be used for further studies.
Shedding light on tackling the
challenges, Dr Iyenger said, “The
usual practice in our country is for a
pathologist to be a “generalist” and
not a specialist with expertise and
experience in only certain aspects of
pathology. This undoubtedly works
with the existing healthcare system
but we need to have a healthy blend
of specialists who would make our
health care system in tune with latest
advances.”
As we are approaching towards
2020, the number of pathologists
in the field is reducing. The ratio of
pathologists to patients is extremely
skewed towards being unfavourable
for the former. Coupled with anincreasing pressure to move faster and
more efficiently, pathology labs need
to find ways to not only better assist
pathologists but also in a way that’s
future-ready, efficient, and scalable.
Digital pathology holds the answer to
this need, and much more.
“India has only about 1,
histopathologists that are trained in
organ specific pathology. Compare
this with the US where there are
close to 18,000, and the problem is
clear. Also, we don’t focus on organ
specialisation as a country so often our
skill-set makes us excellent generalists
but when it comes to extremely
rare or difficult patient diagnosis,
we are at a loss. Collaborating with
countries like the US is certainlyone way to overcome this challenge.
This of course will require labs to be
enabled with digital pathology and to
have a collaborative and transparent
mindset”, Zoya Brar opines.WHAT’S NEXT IN PATHOLOGY
FUTURE?
Medical science is rapidly evolving
and so as advances made in the field of
laboratory diagnostics. A pathologist
has transformed from being a support,
to an active partner in healthcare
delivery. There is an ever-increasing
dependence of the physician on the
laboratory and this synergy works
wonders in the era of precision and
personalised healthcare.
Broadly speaking, the government
must help create a regulatory
environment that ensures that
organisations get incentivised to focus
on providing the right quality.
“India has tremendous potential
of becoming the digital pathology
hub of the future given the existing IT
capabilities. Proactive policies by the
government will take us a long way
forward,” Dr Iyenger said.REPLACING THE
OLD TECHNIQUE
OF LABORATORY
EXAMINATION WITH
THE NEW DIGITAL
TECHNIQUE MEANS
PATHOLOGY HAS NOW
BECOME COMPLETELY
IMAGE-BASED
INFORMATION, WHICH
IS RETRIEVED WITH THE
HELP OF COMPUTER
TECHNOLOGY.