title: Recent advances in standards for Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology refers to the use of information technology that supports the creation and sharing or exchange of information, including data and images, during the complex workflow performed in an Anatomic Pathology department from specimen reception to report transmission and exploitation. Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology can only be fully achieved using medical informatics standards. The goal of the international integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative is precisely specifying how medical informatics standards should be implemented to meet specific health care needs and making systems integration more efficient and less expensive.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To define the best use of medical informatics standards in order to share and exchange machine-readable structured reports and their evidences (including whole slide images) within hospitals and across healthcare facilities.
  
  
  METHODS
  Specific working groups dedicated to Anatomy Pathology within multiple standards organizations defined standard-based data structures for Anatomic Pathology reports and images as well as informatic transactions in order to integrate Anatomic Pathology information into the electronic healthcare enterprise.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The DICOM supplements 122 and 145 provide flexible object information definitions dedicated respectively to specimen description and Whole Slide Image acquisition, storage and display. The content profile "Anatomic Pathology Structured Report" (APSR) provides standard templates for structured reports in which textual observations may be bound to digital images or regions of interest. Anatomic Pathology observations are encoded using an international controlled vocabulary defined by the IHE Anatomic Pathology domain that is currently being mapped to SNOMED CT concepts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Recent advances in standards for Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology are a unique opportunity to share or exchange Anatomic Pathology structured reports that are interoperable at an international level. The use of machine-readable format of APSR supports the development of decision support as well as secondary use of Anatomic Pathology information for epidemiology or clinical research.
authors.affiliation: ADICAP-INSERM, UMR_S 872 eq20 Paris, F-75006, France. christel.daniel@crc.jussieu.fr
authors.forename: Christel
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Macary
authors.forename: Marcial García
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Rojo
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Klossa
authors.forename: Arvydas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Laurinavičius
authors.forename: Bruce A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Beckwith
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Della Mea
mesh_terms: D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D018511:Systems Integration; D019113:Telepathology / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*