Analysis of system and scanner downtime in a digital pathology–predominant institution: A 6-year experience

Objective To determine trends in system and scanner downtime in our institution’s digital pathology pipeline since its implementation. Methods Scanner and system downtime data were tabulated from a period beginning in 2017 and ending in 2022. Downtime events were categorized based on their etiology, such as image management system related for the overall system or hardware vs software related for the scanner. Results The maximum scanner downtime consisted of 36 events and occurred in the first quarter of 2019; most of this downtime was attributed to hardware issues. The average scanner downtime per quarter was 350.7 hours. Multifactorial events tended to last longer than single events. System downtime was mostly due to the image management system. Full-system downtime occurred from 2017 through 2019; since then, full-system downtime has essentially been replaced with partial downtime. Conclusions Scanner downtime was mostly due to hardware, while system downtime was mostly caused by issues with the image management system. With experience, our institution mitigated the impact of technological difficulties, significantly reducing the number of downtime events since the implementation of digital pathology in 2017.