Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s announced on Tuesday that they will roll out Philips IntelliSite digital pathology tools to both enable research and support clinical diagnosis and collaboration.

Mass General and Brigham and Women’s, both part of Partners HealthCare in Boston, expect the work will help inform the use of digital pathology across the country using best practices and protocols.

Pathology is a branch of medicine that deals with the laboratory examination of samples of body tissue for diagnostic or forensic purposes.

Working with Phillips, the hospital leaders plan to establish digital pathology centers. Partners personnel and Philips engineers and scientists will work together on the project. The team will collaborate with Partners personnel and Philips engineers and scientists.

Jeff Golden, MD, chair of pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said the collaboration of two large academic institutions will be a boon for the future of digital pathology.

"There is tremendous opportunity not only to improve lab efficiency through increased access to information and images that eliminate the chance of materials being lost, broken, or misfiled, but also to dramatically enhance patient care through the deployment of advanced algorithms." Golden said in a statement.

Digital pathology incorporates digital images of tissue into the pathology workflow rather than conducting a visual examination of the slide via a microscope. The digital approach has gained momentum in recent years as benefits include automating workflow to enable pathologists to compile clinically actionable information. It also makes it easier to collaborate and share images.

David Louis, MD, pathologist-in-chief at Massachusetts General Hospital added that digital transformation of pathology is critical to the field for both patients and specialists.

"Determining how to integrate intelligent technology into workflows is a first step to change how pathologists work on a day-to-day basis and to allow for the introduction and development of artificial intelligence in diagnostic anatomic pathology," Louis said.

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