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.