In the ASC webinar “When ROSE Coverage Is Stretched: A Practical Digital Cytology Use Case”, Dr. Sara Monaco shared her practical experience with telecytology and ROSE coverage in a rural healthcare system setting.
Rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) workflows place pressure on time, staffing, and access to expertise. In the American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) webinar When ROSE Coverage Is Stretched: A Practical Digital Cytology Use Case, Dr. Zaibo Li of The Ohio State University introduced Dr. Sara Monaco, who shared her experience with telecytology and ROSE coverage in a rural healthcare setting.
Much of the discussion focused on the practical reality of supporting distributed workflows in central Pennsylvania, where growing small-biopsy volumes and limited staffing increase the need for flexible access to cytology expertise. Dr. Monaco also discussed telecytology implementation experience at Geisinger, keeping the conversation grounded in day-to-day workflow challenges rather than future-looking technology discussions.
Throughout the webinar, the same operational challenge kept coming up: expertise may exist within the system, but getting that expertise to the right place at the right time is not always straightforward. In distributed pathology environments, expertise is often concentrated while demand is spread across locations, procedure rooms, or service sites. When staffing is already stretched, physically moving people or slides can quickly become part of the workflow burden. Dr. Monaco described the workflow in terms of travel, read time, and wait time between passes, which helped frame why remote review can become operationally valuable.
Removing travel does not solve every challenge, but it can significantly change how ROSE coverage is supported. Remote review allows teams to provide expertise without physically sending the interpreter to the biopsy site, which becomes especially important when one specialist may be supporting multiple locations or procedure teams. The webinar also highlighted an operational detail that many pathology teams will recognize immediately: in short-staffed environments, one person is often responsible for preparation and staining between passes while also coordinating review. In those situations, workflow design matters. Digital slide review can support a more independent remote review process between passes and reduce the need for simultaneous viewing at every moment.
In these situations, digital pathology becomes less about digitization itself and more about supporting the workflow. The discussion focused less on technology adoption as a goal on its own and more on where digital access can solve specific operational problems.
The webinar also reflected something many pathology teams are already experiencing: digital workflows often gain traction first in areas where staffing, coordination, or coverage challenges are already difficult to manage. For many organizations, adoption does not begin with a full laboratory transformation. More often, it begins with a focused workflow where the operational benefit is easier to see. ROSE is one example. Remote consultation, second opinions, and distributed review workflows are others.
In those settings, the value of digital pathology becomes easier to understand because it is directly connected to an existing workflow challenge rather than a broader future-oriented technology initiative. Remote ROSE workflows do not remove every operational difficulty, but they can help teams rethink how expertise is distributed across locations and how pathology support is coordinated in time-sensitive situations.
In that sense, remote ROSE workflows are not just a technology use case. They are an example of how digital pathology is being adopted to support everyday operational challenges in real clinical environments.
Whether you are exploring digital cytology for the first time or already working with digital pathology workflows, we hope this webinar offers practical insights and valuable perspectives from experienced professionals in the field.
If you would like to learn more about Grundium Ocus® pathology scanners or discuss your own digital pathology workflow needs, feel free to contact our team or request a personal demo.
