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In 2017, pathologist Dr. Ali Gabali had a case that changed his thinking about medicine.
He was preparing for a required sub-speciality review for a complex breast-carcinoma case at a tumor board scheduled for the next morning. Unfortunately, the pathology slides he needed to evaluate the case were located in different hospitals that had to be sent by courier, causing a 24-hour delay in the scheduled tumor board and a subsequent delay in patient care. It was then that he determined “the bottleneck was not medicine – it was logistics.”
Upon arriving at McLaren Health Care System’s Karmanos Cancer Institute as the new chairman and chief medical officer for pathology and laboratory services, Dr. Gabali was determined to resolve these issues by connecting the fully integrated health system’s expertise throughout Michigan to develop pathology networking and improve its scalability. The goal was to produce pathology results faster and, if possible, use the new solution to create greater efficiencies and reduce costs.
This was especially challenging for such a large statewide operation like McLaren, which has 13 hospitals and 17 Karmanos satellite clinics – some within a six-hour drive time from each other and some in remote areas of Michigan where winter access can be problematic at times.
Unrelated to weather, the pathology lab also had hurdles to overcome in reducing turnaround time. Health system staff were working with larger oncology case loads, involving an ever-increasing number of biomarkers, requiring greater coordination among experts. Sub-specialists were also getting harder to find, limiting expertise, making recruitment more difficult and creating an imbalance of expertise in geographies. Eighty-four percent of labs report that courier delays directly impact delivery of patient results.1
“I knew the future was digital pathology,” Gabali said. “We were the first in the state of Michigan to implement full-blown digital pathology.”
Digital Pathology Integration
McLaren Health Care worked closely with Roche Diagnostics to connect 15 slide scanners for use in digitizing slides to its navify® digital pathology platform and the hospitals’ Laboratory Information System (LIS). This allowed slides to be reviewed digitally, assisting with pattern detection and differential diagnosis, and the information is available through the hospital EHR for quick recall.*
“As soon as the slides get processed, we get a picture of that slide and we can review that slide the same day and that decreases our turnaround time, which is priceless,” Dr. Gabali said.
In addition to better turnaround times for pathology results, digital pathology also has made it easier to recruit pathologists, and created some impressive cost savings in reduced need for full-time employees, fewer courier fees and less reliance on outsourcing to clinical sub-specialists, he said.
My executive leadership appreciated the operational leverage that digital pathology provided, as well as the financial stability and a broader, positive reputation," said Dr. Gabali. "It also assisted in supporting our talent strategy."
Maximize Digital Pathology return-on-investment*
Drive $350,000 in annual bottom-line gains and add two full-time pathologists in anticipation of delivering $1.75M in total value over 5 years.
Annual External Consults: With an average external consult cost of $300, reclaimed $225,000 in annual revenue by recapturing half of the $450,000 external consult leakage.
Courier Costs: Slashed the $125,000 courier spend by transitioning to digital pathology and eliminating the $25 per-case physical transport fee.
Time Savings: Unlocked 4,167 hours of annual capacity—the equivalent of adding two full-time pathologists by saving 5 minutes on every one of the 50,000 yearly cases.
Q&A Clips
How does digital pathology assist in mclaren healthcare question and answer
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How does digital pathology assist McLaren Health Care? (1:59)
Digital pathology decreases turnaround time and increases the pathologist’s engagement and confidence.
How does McLaren Health Care evaluate the financial return-on-investment or ROI from digital pathology?
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How does McLaren Health Care evaluate the financial return-on-investment from digital pathology? (1:46)
Dr. Gabali explains above how less time preparing a slide for viewing and consulting internally among peer pathologists saves external consulting costs.
Does digital pathology help in the recruitment and retention of pathologists?
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Does digital pathology help in the recruitment and retention of pathologists? (1:06)
Dr. Gabali talks about how digital pathology assists in recruiting pathologists.
Additional Q&A
Contributor
Dr. Ali Gabali, MD, PhD, FCAP
Dr. Gabali serves as the chairman and professor of pathology at McLaren Health Care and the Karmanos Cancer Institute, bringing over 20 years of distinguished expertise across academic medicine, clinical diagnostics, laboratory leadership and global strategy. An American board-certified physician in hematology, anatomic pathology and clinical pathology, he combines extensive clinical insight with strategic vision to advance patient care and medical education.
*Outcomes are derived from specific engagements within McLaren Health Care and are for illustrative purposes only. Not product claims.
References
- CAP Today survey, 2025. Last accessed June 10, 2026.
