New model will improve patient access and speed, accuracy of diagnostic testing
EVANSTON, Ill., April 9, 2025 -- Endeavor Health is leading the way to usher in a new era of pathology services that embraces digital technology and artificial intelligence to provide faster and more accurate diagnoses and increase patient access. The health system is announcing a new model, one of the first of its kind, developed in collaboration with Google Cloud.
Pathology reports, which uncover the causes and effects of diseases, play a crucial role in many critical medical decisions made by physicians. While much of medicine is increasingly digital and tech-enabled, pathology departments across the country still largely rely on physical slides and microscopes for tissue diagnosis, rather than digital images, resulting in slower turnaround times and limited interaction with patients.
To solve these problems, Endeavor Health is leading development of one of the world's first fully cloud-based digital pathology platforms that will allow healthcare providers to better collaborate with other physicians, give patients more access to their care team and improve diagnostic speed and accuracy. Endeavor Health chose to partner with Google Cloud, after realizing the need for a broadly applicable digital model that would improve pathology services not only at Endeavor Health, but for other systems.
"To truly transform patient care, digital pathology must move beyond isolated systems that can't connect to each other and embrace a safe, seamless and personal approach," said John Groth, MD, a pathologist at Endeavor Health and lead for the digital pathology project. "This will allow us to drive transformation and advance diagnostics in ways that make a positive impact for patients across our system and deliver the best care now and in the future."
This digital pathology system also will improve collaboration among physicians by easily sharing digital files for second opinions, and allow patients to better participate in their care decisions. At Endeavor Health, patients will soon have access to schedule clinical visits with a pathologist, where they will have the ability to see their pathology medical images and ask questions to better understand the diagnoses they have been given.
"Pathologists are a critical member of your care team, but you may never meet them during your care journey," Groth said. "Through this shift to digital pathology, patients can uniquely access their images, and more easily connect with pathologists, and better understand their diagnosis."
Endeavor Health's new model rapidly advances previous efforts by the healthcare industry to explore digital pathology by pioneering the first fully connected, cloud-based and patient-centered approach. Eric Merchant, System AVP IT Applications at Endeavor Health, said the goal of that approach is to ensure seamless compatibility and connectivity across healthcare systems while empowering patients with direct access to and a deeper understanding of their pathology images.
"Patients are at the core of everything we do," he said. "Every effort, every innovation – from diagnosis to larger efforts like this one – are done with the goal of improving the lives of our patients. With digital pathology, we can make that improvement on an even broader scale for patients everywhere."
According to Merchant, a significant barrier to the widespread adoption of digital pathology is that different systems rely on different file formats, which makes storing and sharing information difficult. The Endeavor Health model solves these problems by leveraging scalable cloud-based file storage and standards-based systems, which don't require conversion or special equipment to store and share.
"Cloud is redefining the field of pathology," said Shweta Maniar, global director, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Google Cloud. "By coupling secure, cost-effective storage with advanced AI, we can enable seamless data access, analysis and innovation like never before. This collaboration sets the stage for a new era in digital pathology, where technology removes traditional barriers and empowers healthcare providers to deliver faster, more accurate and more accessible diagnostics."
About Endeavor Health
Endeavor Health℠ is a Chicagoland-based integrated health system driven by our mission to help everyone in our communities be their best. As Illinois' third-largest health system and third-largest medical group, we proudly serve an area of more than 4.2 million residents across seven northeast Illinois counties. Our more than 27,600 team members, including more than 1,700 employed physicians, are the heart of our organization, delivering seamless access to personalized, pioneering, world-class patient care across more than 300 ambulatory locations and nine hospitals, including eight Magnet-recognized acute care hospitals – Edward (Naperville), Elmhurst, Evanston, Glenbrook (Glenview), Highland Park, Northwest Community (Arlington Heights), Skokie and Swedish (Chicago) and Linden Oaks Behavioral Health Hospital (Naperville). For more information, visit www.endeavorhealth.org.
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