Rapid creation of a website to produce educational and clinical support resources for global use during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

It became clear at the onset of the pandemic that radiography could play an important role in diagnosing and staging COVID-19. The key modality would be mobile chest radiography. However, at the onset of the pandemic, no literature existed to indicate whether or not chest X-ray imaging could be used effectively to diagnose or exclude COVID-19. This article explains how a website was created, at speed, during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Containing holistic information, the website helped enable rapid redeployment of radiographers onto the frontline where chest X-ray imaging was needed. It aimed to help train radiographers take (and interpret) chest radiographs in high-risk areas that contained large numbers of COVID-19 patients. Within one year, the website had been used in 157 countries. This article documents the approach taken to create the website and suggestions are made about how, in the future, a rapid approach could be achieved to create other websites – should an international crisis occur again. This paper also outlines how stakeholders and content authors from across the world were brought together and supported to create the website. It goes on to explain the leadership style that was adopted to create the website and why that style was selected. An explanation is offered about the project management approach and how its ingredients relate to a published model. Aside from simply providing a historical account of how the website was created, we hope the narrative offers food for thought on how to respond rapidly during an international crisis to formulate and implement a unified international-level solution which addresses an urgent need.