Surgical pathology images on the iPhone?

By: Brian Dolan | Mar 4, 2009        

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Lab Soft News, a blog presented by the Pathology Education Consortium (PEC), which describes the publication as an “Idea Factory for Pathology Informatics and the Clinical Laborator” has a lengthy post on the popularity of the iPhone’s camera. PEC’s president, Bruce Friedman MD wrote that the iPhone’s camera is ranked as the fifth most popular one used to upload photos to the very popular Flickr service. Friedman said the statistic was “fascinating.” One of his readers started a discussion about whether he’d use the iPhone to diagnose pathological diseases–I asked whether there would ever be a situation where he’d need to or want to do use an iPhone to do diagnose pathological diseases. 

Check out the post to add to the discussion and follow along as it develops.

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  • http://www.labsoftnews.com Bruce Friedman

    The use of the word “pathogens” in the title of this note is a little misleading. The comments that came into my blog were about the potential use of an iPhone to review surgical pathology images that have been posted on a laboratory information system (LIS) or EMR and thus made accessible by a web browser integrated into a cell phone like an iPhone. However, the same technology could theoretically be used to review a smear from the microbiology lab that has been digitized (i.e., an image that contains “pathogens”).

  • http://mobihealthnews.com Brian Dolan

    Thanks, Bruce. I updated the header to reflect your suggestions… You never weighed in, though. Would you see value in using an iPhone to review surgical pathology images?

  • http://www.labsoftnews.com Bruce Friedman

    Just finished a blog note on this topic that I will post on Lab Soft News tomorrow morning and that incorporates your comment and that of Ole Eichhorn. I can’t wait to read what I think about the idea.