In the December 2018 issue of CAP Today, the College of American Pathologists and the National Society for Histology announced the 2019 release of a new quality improvement program called Whole Slide Image Quality Improvement Program. The program evaluates the quality of H&E sections cut and stained in a lab and the WSI scanned from that slide from the same lab. The H&E slides are sent to CAP and the whole slide images are uploaded to CAP. Experts will then evaluate both the H&E and the WSI together. By having both the glass and the WSI, the reviewing experts will be able to determine if an identified quality issue is due to microtomy, staining or whole slide scanning. The experts will suggest improvements. There are two challenges a year with four slides and the corresponding whole slide images to prepare for each challenge. The program is available at the CAP.org in the 2019 Surveys Catalog.
When I was a Lab Medical Director, our lab participated in the CAP/NSH HistoQIP, a similar program but for histology only. I found the program very helpful and I would expect that the new program, for whole slide imaging and histology, will be just as helpful. I would imagine that CAP/NSH will expand the program to include comparing special stains and immunohistochemistry slides to the whole slide images. I would recommend that any laboratory that is currently, or is considering performing, primary diagnosis by whole slide imaging using H&E, should participate in this program.
Image attribution: https://www.cap.org/laboratory-improvement/catalogs-ordering-and-shipping
Reference: http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/CAPTODAY/