Hello. Have you looked at a patient's
electronic medical record lately?
By sheer volume well over half
the discrete data in this record
is generated by pathology testing
Nearly every hospitalized patient and many
outpatients get lab tests as part of
their care
the results of these tests are used to
make diagnoses
screen for conditions and follow the
progression of chronic diseases
such as those at the kidney the liver
and the heart
the life-changing diagnosis of cancer
many times comes in the formal a pathology report
as a rich source of data
the Department of Pathology is uniquely
enabled
to facilitate research using data mining
and machine learning techniques
during
the management of a patient
typically focus on the most recent labs
on a single patient
at a time
it is humanly impossible to look at
every nuance and combination of lab results
available on a given patient or in a
population however
However, using computer systems to analyze a potentially massive amount of data can
be much more informative
the mining of microbiology data produces
clinically useful
information such as anti bio grams and
can assist in tracking patterns of rare infections
or the spread of antibiotic resistance
mining of data from surgical pathology
and hematopathology 
is a main input for cancer registrars
that produce statistics
about cancer diagnosis and treatment on
a state and national level
in addition to producing useful
information about populations of patients
mining and computer analysis of
Pathology data can assist
in the treatment of individual patient
as well. as just one example
machine learning techniques applied to
routine laboratory results
can be used to flag patience that may be
more likely to fail treatment other
chronic disease
or those more likely to progress to a
more serious stage I disease
pathology is one of the richest sources
of healthcare data
and has largely unexplored from the
standpoint of applying machine learning
algorithms to produce clinically useful information.
Information imbedded 
in the common tests are ordered on a
daily basis for many patients
can direct clinicians to better treatment
decisions
and prevent the ordering up unnecessary
expensive
or invasive tests.
Research in the area of pathology data mining has the potential
to increase quality and decrease the
cost of health care
that is to bring greater value to the
health care provided
I invite you to take part in this
exciting
and evolving field of research.
