A team of radiologists and radiographers at Oxford University Hospitals has secured a grant to customise a teaching platform to educate frontline NHS staff to diagnose COVID-19 using chest X-rays and CT scans.
The platform was initially developed with funding from Health Education England to train Oxford Medical School students and trainee radiologists how to recognise tuberculosis on chest X-rays, and with Prostate Cancer UK to develop a training platform for prostate cancer MRI imaging.
It will now be developed to support decision making for NHS staff to diagnose COVID-19 using chest X-rays and CT scans, thanks to funding from Pfizer.
The web-based platform will host a large database of diagnostic quality images and other educational materials that allow clinical staff to assess in real time their medical image reporting skills.
The trust said “the funding will help the team develop additional materials for the platform, to help frontline clinicians to recognise COVID-19 on patients’ chest X-rays and CT scans, as well as other life-threatening conditions with which the COVID-19 images can be confused. The materials on the platform will include an image database consisting of a large number of anonymised images alongside associated clinical data, all complying with strict data protection rules, as well as a range of teaching materials such as slideshows, notes and videos.”
Dr Sarim Ather, a Specialist Registrar in Clinical Radiology “A shortage of radiologists across the NHS means that the acute interpretation of medical imaging is often done by frontline clinicians such as junior doctors and emergency department staff. This platform will go a long way to ensuring that the image interpretation meets a suitable standard, through high-quality training and quality assurance.”
“There’s a growing awareness among healthcare professionals of the importance of medical imaging – chest X-rays, ultrasound or CT scans – in diagnosing COVID-19, assessing how severe the disease is in individual patients and identifying other underlying conditions.”
“Imaging also plays a key role in diagnosing alternative causes for a patient’s symptoms, such as pneumonia, heart failure or pulmonary embolism, all of which are potentially life-threatening conditions that require a different treatment.”
“To get the most from the images and to diagnose as many cases correctly as possible, it’s important that as many medical staff as possible are trained in recognising COVID-19 related imaging findings.”
“We are able to provide users with feedback on their diagnostic accuracy on real-life cases. This should give them confidence in their abilities, as well as highlighting areas of image interpretation that may be further improved.”
