Telepathology Implementation Challenges and Benefits: A Scoping Review

Telepathology is fundamentally altering the way pathology is delivered. As of today, research has paid a good deal of attention to technical feasibility and diagnosis accuracy, but less to other aspects essential to telepathology project success. The objectives of this review are to provide an overview of non-technical telepathology research and present a research agenda for future efforts. The proposed framework identifies two main thematic areas: telepathology benefits, expressed in terms of accessibility of care, quality of care and economic efficiency, and telepathology implementation challenges, expressed at the individual, organizational and legal levels. Researchers should strive to assess benefits through more rigorous methodologies and use more existing theories and frameworks to explain telepathology implementation challenges and success.