Informatics and Autopsy Pathology

Many health care providers believe that the autopsy is no longer relevant in high-technology medicine era. This has fueled a decline in the hospital autopsy rate. Although it seems that advanced diagnostic tests answer all clinical questions, studies repeatedly demonstrate that an autopsy uncovers as many undiagnosed conditions today as in the past. The forensic autopsy rate has also declined, although not as precipitously. Pathologists are still performing a nineteenth century autopsy procedure that remains essentially unchanged. Informatics offers several potential answers that will evolve the low-tech autopsy into the high-tech autopsy.