CREW - Research : Medical Collaboratory

	Investigators: Ronald Adler, Ronald Bude, Michael Cohen, Tom Finholt , Charles Meyer, Atul Prakash, Terry Weymouth

	Students: Stéphane Côté, Nelson Manohar, Amit Mathur, Hyong Shim, Gwobaw Wu

	Technical Support / Staff: Todd Gee, Peter Knoop, Timothy Pletcher / Kathy DeWitt

	Sponsors: National Science Foundation

	Overview

Traditionally, consultation between a physician and a radiologist on patient x-rays or ultrasound has been a slow process. A primary-care physician at a remote site generally waits 1 to 3 days just to get an audio evaluation of an image from a radiologist at a major hospital.

The NSF-funded Medical Collaboratory Testbed is an attempt to streamline physician-radiologist collaboration. Researchers are creating a Web-based, Java system for asynchronous sharing of diagnostic images and evaluations among radiologists, interns, and clinicians. This "teleradiology" system provides for the capture and replay of gesture and voice annotations on radiographic images.

Methods

The testbed project has included an analysis of the needs and current practices of radiologists at U-M Medical Center who consult with physicians at several local clinics, and an evaluation of the effects of these new collaboration tools on the consulting work itself.

CREW work on the Medical Collaboratory Testbed is closely related to CREW work on the Upper Atmostpheric Research Collaboratory (UARC) project — a testbed for collaboration technology in remote science observation — and the University of Michigan Digital Library (UMDL) project.

The Medical Collaboratory is supported by National Science Foundation Grant ECS-94-22701: March 1, 1995 through Feburary 28, 1998.

	Related Links

	- Medical Collaboratory Testbed Web site - U-M Digital Library - UARC