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The Mission of the Association for Pathology Informatics is to promote the field of pathology informatics as an academic and a clinical subspecialty of pathology.

What We Do

Pathology Informatics involves collecting, examining, reporting, and storing large complex sets of data derived from tests performed in clinical laboratories, anatomic pathology laboratories, or research laboratories in order to improve patient care and enhance our understanding of disease-related processes.

Pathology Informaticians seek to continuously improve existing laboratory information technology and enhance the value of existing laboratory test data, and develop computational algorithms and models aimed at deriving clinical value from new data sources.

The Association for Pathology Informatics (API) was founded in 2000 by a group of pathologists interested in defining pathology informatics as a clinical subspecialty within pathology by way of education. API continues to support this educational mission by:

1.Sponsoring a national educational meeting,

2.Providing educational content to other Pathology meetings (e.g. United States & Canadian Academy of Pathology annual meeting),

3.Developing and educating members about standards for reporting, transferring, storing and merging pathology related information,

4.Developing an independent, not-for-profit, open access peer-reviewed electronic academic journal, Journal of Pathology Informatics (JPI), which published the first quarterly edition in March, 2010. JPI is available for viewing at http://www.jpathinformatics.org/. JPI is indexed in PubMed.

5.Promoting education of residents and practicing pathologists in informatics and technology that enhances the field of laboratory medicine.

API has also worked to create data standards and educate members about such standards, relating to both pathology research and service pathology to encourage effective reporting and integration of pathology data. API co-sponsored four workshops along with the National Cancer Institutes, to develop an open access, tissue microarray data exchange specification (Berman et al, BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 2003, 3:5. Available at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/3/5). The API Laboratory Digital Imaging Project (LDIP) was initiated in 2004 as a forum for collaboration between the academic, research, and biotech communities for the development of industry standards for pathology image and data interchange to improve the quality of research in pathology and patient care.

Since September, 2010, API is a co-sponsor of the merged APIII and Lab InfoTech Summit, creating a single national pathology informatics meeting, Pathology Informatics 20XX (see www.pathologyinformatics.com.) API was incorporated in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in September, 2009 and received approval of status as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.