According to the European Directive 2013/59/EURATOM “Laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation”, any medical exposure should show a sufficient net benefit, weighing the total potential diagnostic or therapeutic benefits it produces against the individual detriment that the exposure might cause, taking into account the efficacy, benefits and risks of available alternative techniques having the same objective but involving no or less exposure to ionising radiation [1,2]. All individual medical exposures must be justified in advance,...

A policy establishing the justification guidelines for imaging examinations using ionizing radiation has been piloted for implementation from February 2018 in all Affidea centers, in order to comply to the European Directive 2013/59/EURATOM and ensure that the benefit from the medical imaging procedure outweighs the increased lifetime cancer risk (Image 1). The justification policy defines clear roles and responsibilities for the referrer, the radiologist and the operator. 1.The referrer is any person entitled to refer individuals for medical exposure and is responsible to provide sufficient...

The policy establishing the justification guidelines for non-urgent imaging examinations using ionizing radiation that is piloted to be implemented in February 2018 in all Affidea centers, ensures that all imaging exposures performed provide a sufficient benefit to the patient when balanced against possible detriment that the examination might cause and harmonizes the practice with the latest European Directive. The introduction of CDS will digitize and optimise the efficiency and efficacy of the justification process.

Gabor Volford, MD Consultant Radiologist Affidea Hungary – Péterfy Sándor Hospital and Trauma Center, Budapest Chryssa Paraskevopoulou, MSc Medical Physicist Affidea BV Amsterdam, The Netherlands Athanasia Papachristodoulou Consultant Radiologist Affidea Greece Thessaloniki/GR Katia Katsari, MSc Medical Physicist Affidea BV Amsterdam, The Netherlands Rowland Illing, MD, PhD Radiologist Affidea BV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation, European Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom, 2013, Official Journal of the European Union. Justification of Practices, Including Non-Medical Human Imaging, General Safety Guide No. GSG-5, 2014. IAEA Safety Standards for protecting people and the Environment. A guide to justification of clinical radiology. The Royal College of Radiologists, 2000. BFCR(00)5. Referral guidelines for imaging, Radiation Protection 118, 2001. European Commission. ACR Appropriatness Guidelines, 2017. The American College of Radiology. (https://acsearch.acr.org/list)