Design Philosophy

Here are some of the principles on which the system was designed ... Use the World Wide Web -- The web is ubiquitous, flexible, user friendly and economical. If you have a modern browser (Netscape 2.0 or later, Explorer 3.0 or later) you can us the system. There is no special training, tech support or additional capital expenditures required. Adhere to Open Internet Standards -- Open standards should allow the system remain compatible with other web based systems and will grow in functionality as internet technology matures. It also makes it easy to build the system out of "off the shelf" components. Browser/Server Architecture -- Placing all the responsibility for report and image formatting on the server makes the system extremely portable, easy to upgrade and very inexpensive for the client. Use a Robust Database -- A database allows for additional security and also allows for the reuse information for educational purposes. With the permission of the referring pathologist and after stripping all patient identifiers, telepathology cases can be placed in our case database for the education of the pathology community at large. Integrate into the Pathology Informatics Environment -- Stand alone systems are highly inefficient. By integrating our telepathology system with our LIS, imaging system and academic information system the telepathology system can be used within the normal workflow of a pathologist's day. Eventually, billing will also be handled directly from our normal financial systems. Use off the shelf components -- Proprietary systems (and private networks) tend not to work well with competing proprietary systems - undermining communication before it has begun - and performance is seldom significantly better than system built from off the shelf components. The most important problem with proprietary systems however is cost. It is ironic that the small practices that would most benefit from the routine availability of teleconsultation are the ones least able to afford proprietary systems. Begin with Static Image Telepathology -- For many purposes a dynamic, real time system would be a significant improvement over the current "static" design. However we wanted an economical system that could be deployed widely over the internet. We did not believe that public network bandwidth could easily support a real time interaction at this time and that a private network would be to expensive and inflexible. We are committed to build a dynamic system based on internet technology - at least for some of our clients - in 1998.