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An essential aspect of learning in imaging is having access to high-quality validated cases to support and enhance learning and to allow learners to receive feedback on their performance and progress.
The NBIA team plans to collaborate with the Scientific Computing team at the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust to establish a national breast imaging case archive containing tens of thousands of validated, anonymised, cases covering the full range of normal, benign and malignant breast pathology. This will allow all learners to have access to a wide range of teaching cases, thereby helping to standardise training and promote the sharing of resources.
The archive will be cloud based allowing learners to stream anonymised cases directly from the archive to a viewing workstation in the breast unit, or to a personal computer at home. Learners will be able to access cases within the archive in several ways. Firstly, they will have access to linked teaching case sets from within individual e-LfH e-learning sessions to allow them to apply their new learning and receive expert feedback on their progress. Secondly, learners will be able to tailor the archive to their own learning needs, by searching for individual cases or compiling their own test case sets. Lastly, in the group learning setting, teaching case sets will be used to provide simulated experience in key areas of breast imaging including screen reading, image evaluation and multidisciplinary team discussion.
Future plans for the online learning hub include question banks, discussion forums and dedicated online CPD courses for qualified professionals as well as online taster resources to raise awareness of breast imaging as a career.
It is envisaged that the bespoke software developed during this project will also be a valuable resource for other imaging communities seeking to establish other large teaching archives in the future.
Radiographers, breast clinicians and radiologists wishing to contribute anonymised cases should contact the Academy here