A major milestone has been reached in our journey toward a more connected, statewide pathology service with new digital haematology and morphology technology now officially live across multiple sites in regional NSW, with more to come!

Our pathol­o­gy labs at Tam­worth, Port Mac­quar­ie, Lis­more, Narrabri, Moree, Wal­gett, Mudgee, Bourke, Black­town, Orange, Wag­ga Wag­ga, Grif­fith, Deniliquin and Bro­ken Hill can now begin report­ing using CellaV­i­sion, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in deliv­er­ing high-qual­i­ty diag­nos­tic ser­vices clos­er to home and improv­ing equi­ty of care for com­mu­ni­ties across NSW.

Led by Direc­tor Sci­en­tif­ic and Tech­ni­cal Strat­e­gy Vanes­sa Thom­son, Project Man­ag­er Mandy Hub­bard and the Dig­i­tal Haema­tol­ogy Mor­phol­o­gy team and sup­port­ed by the Haema­tol­ogy Clin­i­cal Stream, this pro­gram is set to trans­form how blood films are reviewed and how quick­ly patients receive care.

“Many months and years of hard work have gone into achiev­ing this goal and it feels like the dawn of a new era,” Vanes­sa said.

Faster answers, clos­er to home

Dig­i­tal mor­phol­o­gy is a game-chang­er for region­al hos­pi­tals with­out haema­tol­o­gists on site.

Kempsey lab man­ag­er Ali­son Steven­son helped pilot the scan­ners and says they are already mak­ing a dif­fer­ence to patient care.

“It’s already con­firmed a pre­vi­ous­ly undi­ag­nosed case of G6PD defi­cien­cy and ensured a patient with acute leukaemia was diag­nosed and trans­ferred to a Syd­ney hos­pi­tal the same day for treat­ment,” she said.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, blood films often need­ed to be couri­ered to met­ro­pol­i­tan loca­tions for spe­cial­ist review. With CellaV­i­sion, films can now be shared instant­ly, improv­ing turn­around times and sup­port­ing faster clin­i­cal decisions.

The new tech­nol­o­gy mod­ernises blood film analy­sis for con­di­tions such as leukaemia and oth­er blood can­cers, strength­en­ing patient safe­ty and stream­lin­ing work­flows across our net­work of pathol­o­gy laboratories.

In many cas­es, haema­tol­o­gists will review films before patients even arrive at refer­ral hos­pi­tals, and it’s help­ing ensure treat­ment and test­ing plans are ready sooner.

“This has been a sig­nif­i­cant pro­gram of work for NSWHP involv­ing many teams and sites,” Vanes­sa said.

“Its suc­cess reflects our people’s pro­fes­sion­al­ism, flex­i­bil­i­ty and strong spir­it of col­lab­o­ra­tion, from project design and site prepa­ra­tion through to train­ing, ver­i­fi­ca­tions and troubleshooting.”

What’s next?

More sites are already on track for NATA accred­i­ta­tion in the com­ing months, includ­ing Glen Innes, Inverell, Armi­dale Taree, Tweed Heads, Roy­al North Shore Bathurst, Nepean, Tumut, Goul­burn, Quean­beyan, Shell­har­bour, Bowral, Camp­bell­town, Liv­er­pool, Shoal­haven, Wol­lon­gong, Forbes, Cowra, Blue Moun­tains, Lith­gow, Dub­bo, Cooma, Moruya, Grafton, Coota­mundra and Young.

By July 2026, a total of 36 sites across NSW will have scan­ners installed — cre­at­ing a tru­ly con­nect­ed dig­i­tal mor­phol­o­gy network.

🎥 Watch how CellaV­i­sion is trans­form­ing dig­i­tal mor­phol­o­gy across our service:

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