RESUMEN
Complete digital pathology transformation for primary histopathological diagnosis is a challenging yet rewarding endeavor. Its advantages are clear with more efficient workflows, but there are many technical and functional difficulties to be faced. The Catalan Health Institute (ICS) has started its DigiPatICS project, aiming to deploy digital pathology in an integrative, holistic, and comprehensive way within a network of 8 hospitals, over 168 pathologists, and over 1 million slides each year. We describe the bidding process and the careful planning that was required, followed by swift implementation in stages. The purpose of the DigiPatICS project is to increase patient safety and quality of care, improving diagnosis and the efficiency of processes in the pathological anatomy departments of the ICS through process improvement, digital pathology, and artificial intelligence tools.
RESUMEN
This study describes the implementation of a management plan for surgical joint replacement waiting lists and its results after 3 years. The plan was based on the following: unification of information and scheduling, periodic review, clinical guidelines, management of demand, prioritization according to need, and increasing the services provided. During the first year, the plan succeeded in revealing the real waiting list, with 23% more patients than previously included. Three years later, 16% of the patients had not turned up for surgery after being scheduled; the mean length of hospital stay for joint replacements had been reduced by 4 days; 59.5% of the patients joining the list had been assessed with a prioritization instrument, and the number of joint replacements had increased by 16% with a reduction of 14.7% in patients waiting for joint replacements. The resolution time for these procedures had also decreased by 3 months for knee arthroplasty and by 1 month for hip arthroplasty.