Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2020
Keywords:
Multicentre study, Not applicable, Quality assurance, Education and training, Dosimetric comparison, eLearning, Computer Applications-General, Audit and standards, CT, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Action 4 - Dose management systems
Authors:
P. Valdes Solis, J. R. Ledesma Aguilar, T. Garzón Benavides, F. Castaño Garcia , D. Pachón Rios
DOI:
10.26044/esi2020/ESI-14455
Description of activity and work performed
In order to achieve the goals defined in the project, a public contest was raised, with these main points:
- One provider for the hole number of CT machines. This same provider should be responsible for the maintenance of the machines for eight years.
- There were four levels of complexity in the machines, Fig. 5 from level 1, the simplest, to the more complex level 4. The definition of the levels was mainly based upon the capacity of solving clinical problems, not only based upon the technical characteristics of the machines. This way, the different levels of machines should be able to diagnose patients included in oncologic processes, stroke or heart diseases. All of them should take into account the special requirements of the pediatric population.
- All the machines should follow the latest regulations related to dose levels and dose registry.
Besides these technical requirements, the contest included other important aspects:
- All the personal should receive optimized training in order to use the machines at the highest standards.
- The proposal should include a system able to manage all the protocols in all the machines, so that all the teams could communicate and share protocols and experiences,
- An information system should be included: the purpose is to know, in real time, how every machine and every team works, both in dose management and in efficiency.
- Friendliness in the installations should be taking into account, specially in pediatric facilities.
Following these principles, this contests allows:
- To get homogeneous equipment all over Andalusia.
- To get up to dated equipment in radiation dose management.
- To adapt all the equipment to the different complexity levels in all the Andalusian hospitals. The purpose is that all the Andalusian citizens can get an optimized diagnosis, no matter where they live.
- To get an homogeneous management of machines, with same protocols and machine use. All the professionals in the Andalusian Health Service can get the same formation.
- To get a dose registry, both individual as poblational.
- To know, real time, the efficiency in every CT facility in Andalusia.
In order to achieve these ambitious goals, the design of the contest had to be innovative. This took a lot of legal review and hard work in the contest design:
- The contest has an eight year lapse. And the global amount is over 45 million euro.
- The purpose is to get a service, not to buy machines. The service includes the diagnostic machines, their installation and maintenance.
- Professional training, in order to optimize use of machines and minimize radiation dose.
- It includes information systems with a centralized office where all the data will be analyzed.
The contest included 58 CT machines, divided into four technical levels. The level needed in every hospital was included in the contest. To define these levels, a previous analysis of needs and activity was made.
To evaluate the offers, an expert committee was formed. It included:
- Radiologists
- Physicists
- Ingeneering professionals
- Representatives from the SAS
To evaluate the different offers, objetive parameters were defined. All the information included in the offers was analyzed by every and all the members of the committee. All the members were independent when considering and evaluating the different offers. The final result took into account all the evaluations. All of them were equally considered.
The contest is now in the final resolution phase, and was published in December 2019. It is expected that all the machines and technologies will be installed during 2020.