"Can you help me understand why the pathology community, now that I know you're not actually a pathologist, but you're actually trying to bring them along, what is the reason for this resistance? "
Tl;dr: Nationally, the pathology community has no ability and no incentive to integrate these capabilities. The science exists; the inertia resists.
The financial model governing pathology work in the US is not designed to improve outcomes - it's only set up for one-off transactions to inch individual patients' care forward using standard, mostly 19th century tools.
And that's about it. There's no money for integration specialists (physicians and IT pros), little money for hardware, and no vision at the health system level for a 5-20 year integration timeline. (NB: happily, my health system is a rare exception to most of this).
Yes, pathologists at the ground level do fear job loss from AI, but the piecemeal nature of IT integration generally insulates us from layoffs in the near term. So most just carry on. You could call it resistance, but that suggests active Luddism, when it's mostly just passive avoidance.
For a department like mine (25 pathologists) to bring in whole-slide imaging (which we've done) and integrate it with Dr. Mahmood's type of innovation would take 1-2 physician FTEs, 1-2 full time IT staff, and a half dozen technicians about 5 more years. Or maybe 10. The answer to that kind of ask at the CFO level is met with "Show us the ROI for the coming 3 fiscal years." It's pretty hard to prove on a spreadsheet.
But we are asking - so stay tuned!
As you point out, it likely has to come from the patients and Congress before widespread adoption can occur - but be prepared to hear, "Integration? In this economy?"
"Can you help me understand why the pathology community, now that I know you're not actually a pathologist, but you're actually trying to bring them along, what is the reason for this resistance? "
Tl;dr: Nationally, the pathology community has no ability and no incentive to integrate these capabilities. The science exists; the inertia resists.
The financial model governing pathology work in the US is not designed to improve outcomes - it's only set up for one-off transactions to inch individual patients' care forward using standard, mostly 19th century tools.
And that's about it. There's no money for integration specialists (physicians and IT pros), little money for hardware, and no vision at the health system level for a 5-20 year integration timeline. (NB: happily, my health system is a rare exception to most of this).
Yes, pathologists at the ground level do fear job loss from AI, but the piecemeal nature of IT integration generally insulates us from layoffs in the near term. So most just carry on. You could call it resistance, but that suggests active Luddism, when it's mostly just passive avoidance.
For a department like mine (25 pathologists) to bring in whole-slide imaging (which we've done) and integrate it with Dr. Mahmood's type of innovation would take 1-2 physician FTEs, 1-2 full time IT staff, and a half dozen technicians about 5 more years. Or maybe 10. The answer to that kind of ask at the CFO level is met with "Show us the ROI for the coming 3 fiscal years." It's pretty hard to prove on a spreadsheet.
But we are asking - so stay tuned!
As you point out, it likely has to come from the patients and Congress before widespread adoption can occur - but be prepared to hear, "Integration? In this economy?"
Great interview - thanks to you both.