Keywords:
Computer applications, eHealth, CT, Digital radiography, Fluoroscopy, Safety, Workforce
Authors:
T. Van Herpe, J. Dutoit, S. Nzitunga, T. De Waelheyns, N. Ilcheva, N. Fitousi, F. Vanrietvelde, J. Jacobs
Purpose or learning objective
Medical imaging has accelerated the enormous progress in medicine. The number of radiological examinations has increased dramatically the last decades and, therefore, is currently standard daily practice. It can be expected this number to even continue to grow due to the rising average population age and the enhanced treatments (chronic illnesses in particular). To reduce the number of still existing errors, more attention has been paid to the quality management of medical imaging examinations. Therefore, there has been a world-wide tendency to establish quality systems and to introduce appropriate quality audits. In 2013, the Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom described the basic safety standards for the protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation [1]. This directive also mentioned that all member states are responsible to carry out the clinical audits according to their national procedures.
To implement the Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom, the Belgian Medical Imaging Platform (BELMIP) prepared a handbook (based on the IAEA QUAADRIL standard) on how to perform clinical audits in radiology in Belgium [2,3]. Bringing this so-called B-QUAADRIL standard into clinical practice often turns out to be rather complex when using traditional methodologies like spreadsheets. In this poster we aim at clarifying how dedicated software can help in such auditing processes.