A cost comparison of telepathology and a visiting pathologist service

We compared the costs of a dynamic, robotic telepathology service for intraoperative frozen sections with the cost of a once-weekly visiting pathologist service established between the small Reutte Hospital, located in north-western Tyrol, and the department of pathology of the University of Innsbruck. Telepathology required either 15 min or 30 min per case in order to make a diagnosis, depending on the type of tissue and the operator's experience in handling the telepathology system. Costs were calculated for a five-year period. The main costs of the telepathology service were for set-up, whereas the main costs of the visiting pathologist service concerned personnel. The threshold at which telepathology was cheaper than the visiting pathologist service was 46 cases per month (15 min for diagnosis) or 135 cases per month (30 min for diagnosis). The present case-load (eight cases per month) at the study hospital was below this threshold.