Using modern IT tools to assess the awareness of MDs on radiation issues and plan a continuous education programme

Abstract

Radiation is significantly involved in a number of common medical tests and procedures. Knowledge of issues concerned with ionizing radiation is, therefore, mandatory in clinical practice. Is there a way to access whether university-level educational programmes concerning medical physics suffice in covering the practical requirements or not? One of the key issues involved in the assessment of the above procedure, however, is how to make use of available technology in order to conduct the assessment as efficiently and as effectively as possible.

In previous work, we devised a sample manual questionnaire aimed at retrieving information regarding the status of radiation awareness, but also investigated the feasibility of applying a robust methodology in the analysis of the results. In this paper, we extend the above mentioned methodology to other areas of MD activity and utilize the question ‘how familiar are MDs with radiation?’ as an example, in order to demonstrate the importance of health information management in the modern era of e-health. Three stages or aspects of information management are considered: (i) efficient online information collection, (ii) effective and robust analysis based on Web databases, and finally (iii) extraction of rules and knowledge using data mining techniques and home-made software that facilitates the retrieval of associations. The latter stage is then further exploited in order to design an improved and realistic plan for the process of continuous education of MDs and health professionals in general.