Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2016
Keywords:
Action 12 - Cooperation with international radiation protection initiatives and other stakeholders including IAEA, WHO, ICRP, HERCA, European Commission, Action 13 - Stakeholder engagement and collaboration
Authors:
L. Lau, J. P. Borgstede
DOI:
10.1594/esi2016/ESI-0004
Background/Introduction
A Framework for Radiation Protection Measures,
Strategies,
and Actions (1)
Successful implementation of patient safety and radiation protection actions in practice hinges on radiologist support,
leadership,
participation,
and teamwork with other stakeholders. System-wide and facility-based improvement efforts are complementary.
The pillars of radiation protection are procedure justification and optimization of diagnostic data and radiation protection. These pillars together with incident minimization are the measures underpinning radiation protection actions. The challenge is to develop and implement a package of cost-effective actions to address the different issues along the patient journey (Figure 1).
A number of strategies are used to implement radiation protection recommendations and guidance tools (Figure 2).
Awareness and education are two of the most commonly used strategies.
Medical radiation protection research provides evidence-based advocacy messages.
The strengthening of system-wide radiation protection infrastructure and adoption of evidence-based radiation safety policies are important strategies.
On-going impact assessment and refinement of these actions are necessary because radiation protection improvement is a continuum.
Non-technical skills add value to improvement actions,
and these include leadership,
stakeholder engagement,
communication,
collaboration,
teamwork,
innovation,
safety culture,
and perseverance.