ECR 2019 / C-3757
The Impact of Radiographer Feedback on the Rate of Red Flag Dose Alerts in CT Studies
Keywords:
CT, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Radiation safety, Dosimetric comparison
Authors:
C. Crowley, B. Carey, O. O’Connor; Cork/IE
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-3757
Conclusion
- The number of red alerts rose after the implementation of a radiographer feedback tool.
Even so,
the number of true alerts fell by more than half and there was no significant difference in CT radiation doses between the two study periods,
with the majority of mean DLPs remaining below NDRLs.
- Low uptake (17.1%) of the feedback tool by radiographers highlights the challenges of implementing justification strategies into workflow,
with time constraints likely having a major influence on this.
- Radiographer justification was shown to provide reliable information on the cause of a red alert.
- More accurate study descriptions and study protocols would likely reduce the number of false alerts.
- A more accurate method of assessing patient size is important to allow the radiographer to tailor the study protocol and dose.
- Using DoseWatch to review and compare the red alert rate and radiation dose of studies performed more than 6-12 months ago is limited by the fact that it continuously modifies its alert thresholds based on cumulative data it gathers from studies over time.
- This study was limited by intermittent problems with transmission of data to DoseWatch from the CT scanner studied during Period 1 which led to reduced data on CTB and CT ABP studies in particular for that time period.