The Society for Computer Applications in Radiology (SCAR) is a 501(c)(3) philanthropic organization committed to the advancement of computer applications and information technology in medical imaging through education and research. The long-term objective of this project is to expand the educational information available online on medical digital imaging.
The specific aims of the project are: 1.) To make educational information from SCAR's Expert Hotline available online for a rapidly increasing and diverse base of users; 2.) To systematically catalogue and index past, current and future Expert Hotline questions to facilitate the retrieval of pertinent information; 3.) To increase availability and accessibility of expert knowledge to healthcare professionals throughout the world. Having this data online will help disseminate critical information to users in rural and less populated areas where it may not be feasible to develop local or regional expertise; 4.) To gather demographic information on Expert Hotline users so that SCAR can respond to their needs more effectively. The existing Expert Hotline correspondence will be converted into an SQL database format and be made available to users throughout the world on the Internet. Access will require users to sign in prior to utilizing the database, which will allow us to track utilization of the information. Data will be recorded concerning the frequency of access to the system over time as well as the number of database queries that are initiated by users. In order to systematically catalogue and index past, current and future Expert Hotline questions to facilitate the retrieval of pertinent information, project staff will undertake a manual review of the current and past Expert Hotline correspondence with classification of these questions according to the subject matter of both the questions and the responses. The index terms will utilize, when possible the NLM index terms. Users will be trained by an online tutorial and at the 2003 SCAR Annual Meeting.
