Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2016
Keywords:
Action 12 - Cooperation with international radiation protection initiatives and other stakeholders including IAEA, WHO, ICRP, HERCA, European Commission, Action 10 - Improved communication and collaboration of health professionals in radiation protection, Action 3 - Optimisation, diagnostic reference levels, image quality, Action 2 - Clinical diagnostic reference levels (DRLs), Action 13 - Stakeholder engagement and collaboration
Authors:
S. Grande, A. Rosi, F. Campanella, M. A. D'Avanzo, G. Compagnone, R. Padovani
DOI:
10.1594/esi2016/ESI-0012
Background/Introduction
Introduction
The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (National Institute of Health,
(ISS)) has a consultant role in safeguarding Public Health in the production and use of radiation in diagnosis and therapy.
Current legislation EURATOM 13/59 (1) emphasizes the need to implement Quality Programmes and to draw up appropriate guidelines by scientific societies or experts to ensure good clinical practice in Radiological Sciences (nuclear medicine,
radiodiagnostics,
interventional radiology,
teleradiology, radiotherapy).
In addition,
request to measure hospital performances,
in order to improve health service quality,
has led to application of survey systems (2).
Clinical audit as a comprehensive indicator system should encompasses structural,
process and outcome dimensions,
producing information useful for decision making and become both a sign and a source of motivation for quality commitment (3).
Recently,
a common activity of ISS and Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro (Italian National Workers Compensation Authority-INAIL) (Fig.
1) has been devoted to radiation protection in Interventional Radiology (IR).
Fig. 1: Istituto Superiore di Sanità (National Health Institute) and Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro (Italian National Workers Compensation Authority) logos.
IR has undergone a rapid development in the last twenty years with a wide diffusion at the national level representing one of the most critical radiation protection scenario due to high exposure values.
In interventional radiology,
patient and worker exposures are closely related,
and it is,
therefore,
necessary that the operational guidelines deal with both aspects.