Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Hammond, Ind. – Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, and Alverno Laboratories, a provider of high-quality diagnostic testing services, today announced that Alverno will fully implement digital pathology in its clinical laboratories. The laboratory network will use Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution to assess and diagnose all clinical histology cases digitally, instead of using a microscope, with the aim of improving laboratory efficiency, quality, and patient safety.
Pathology plays a critical role in disease detection, particularly with cancer diagnosis. Suspicious tissue samples are investigated to determine if the tissue is malignant and consequently guides treatment decisions. As one of the largest pathology laboratories in the Midwest, Alverno manages 33 hospital laboratories and provides laboratory services to two freestanding emergency departments and thousands of physician offices and other clients. Alverno consults on more than 142,000 histological cases each year, which translates to more than 1,100,000 slides of human tissue. Currently, each of these slides needs to be prepared, analyzed through a microscope, diagnosed, reported and archived. Digitizing these images will ease collaboration across sites and help reduce costs.