Expert opinion crowdsourcing

Abstract

An expert opinion crowdsourcing system is disclosed that may enable a person seeking an opinion (or other work product) to efficiently access experts (or other persons) who may provide such opinions (or other work products). For example, the system may enable a person to submit a request to the system, at which point the system may automatically match the request to one or more appropriate experts. The system may then provide the request to the appropriate experts, and receive opinions back from the experts in response to the request. The opinions may then be provided back to the person that submitted the request. The request may include various characteristics and/or criteria that may be matched to, or satisfied by, other characteristics or criteria associated with the experts. The system may include aspects whereby requests and/or opinions may be anonymized and/or combined.

1 - 13 . (canceled) 
     
     
         14 . A computing system comprising:
 a storage device configured to store electronic software instructions; and   one or more computer processors configured to execute the stored software instructions to cause the computing system to:   receive a case including associated case characteristics, the case provided by a submitter, the case characteristics including a submitter type;   receive expert information associated with experts, the expert information including expert characteristics associated with each respective expert, the expert characteristics including indications of accepted submitter types;   match the case to one or more experts based on the case characteristics and the expert characteristics, wherein the submitter type associated with the case matches the indications of accepted submitter types associated with the one or more matched experts; and   provide the case to the matched experts.   
     
     
         15 . The computing system of  claim 14 , wherein the case includes one or more medical images, and wherein the experts include physicians having expertise in review of respective types of medical images. 
     
     
         16 . The computing system of  claim 14 , wherein the one or more computer processors are further configured to execute the stored software instructions to cause the computing system to:
 receive reports from the matched experts, the reports including evaluations of the provided case;   provide at least one of the received reports to the submitter;   receive, from the submitter, a rating associated with the at least one provided report;   associate the rating with an expert that provided the at least one provided report.   
     
     
         17 . The computing system of  claim 16 , wherein the expert characteristics include ratings associated with respective experts, the case characteristics include a minimum expert rating, and matching the case to the one or more experts includes determining that a rating associated with a particular matched expert satisfies the minimum expert rating. 
     
     
         18 . The computing system of  claim 16 , wherein the submitter type includes at least one of: a patient, a patient that wants to discuss results, a patient that does not require a discussion, a doctor, a type of doctor, a referring doctor, a lawyer, an attorney working for a defendant, an attorney working for a plaintiff, or an insurance company. 
     
     
         19 . A computer-readable, non-transitory storage medium storing computer executable instructions that, when executed by a computer system, configure the computer system to perform operations comprising:
 receiving a case including associated case characteristics, the case provided by a submitter, the case characteristics including an indication that the submitter desires to be able to contact an expert;   receiving expert information associated with experts, the expert information including expert characteristics associated with each respective expert, the expert characteristics including indications whether respective experts are willing to be contacted by the submitter;   matching the case to one or more experts based on the case characteristics and the expert characteristics, wherein case characteristics associated with the one or more matched experts indicated that the respective experts are willing to be contacted by the submitter; and   providing the case to the matched experts.   
     
     
         20 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 19 , the operations further comprising:
 receiving, from each of the matched experts, reports based on the provided case;   generating a composite report based on the received reports; and   providing the composite report to the submitter.   
     
     
         21 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 20 , wherein the composite report is generated based on ratings associated with each of the reports. 
     
     
         22 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 21 , wherein the ratings associated with each of the reports are provided by the matched experts.