9422701 Weymouth This award is made in support of the NSF initiative ENG-CISE-IITA94, National Challenges. It is a joint initiative between the Engineering Directorate and the Computer Information and Engineering Directorate. A collaborative test bed will be developed to support consultations between geographically distributed primary care pnysician and radiologic specialists and sub-specialists in tertiary care hospitals. The focus will be on the design, implementation, and the evaluation of a prototype system for synchronous and asynchronous viewing of medical images over a distance. This project will simultaneously address three research issues: adaptation of conventional medical dianostic practice to remote collaborative technology; creation of a toolkit of computer applications to facilitate adaption of these practices; and assessment of the impact of remote collaborative technology on medical diagnostic practice. These three aspects of the study reinforce each other through the use of rapid prototyping strategy. A working system will be delivered to physician users early in the project and then maintianed on a frequent cycle of user feedback, responsive redesign, and systematic evaluation. To be successful, rapid prototyping approach requires the ability to correctly determine initial user needs, the ability to quickly evolve technology to meet these requirements, and continuously monitor whether deployed technology is satisfactory. Therefore, this project team will be multi-disciplinary, encompassing physicians who will ofer expert input into the design and development process, computer scientists familiar with user-oriented aplplication development, and social scientists trained in the assessment of the impact of technology on work practices and routines.
