From the June 2013 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


It also uses information from the International Committee of Radiation Protection on how radiation affects particular areas of the body.

For those who want to start keeping track of dose but don’t have the budget for new software or equipment, one free dose monitoring tool is RADIANCE, an open-source software pipeline designed by radiologists at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania that automatically extracts and archives CT dose-related parameters from the dose sheets CT scanners provide.


Don’t go changin’
Even when images are high quality, they still have a different appearance — some describe it as waxy — that can be challenging for radiologists to adjust to.

“It does take a little getting used to, looking at a slightly different image,” says NYU Langone’s Kim. He says current research projects are investigating whether diagnoses changes when radiologists look at images produced with less dose.

Toshiba’s latest iterative reconstruction release, AIDR 3D, works to alleviate that issue by reducing image noise and dose while keeping image quality close to what radiologists are used to.

“At one facility, we didn’t even tell the radiologists we had implemented it, and they didn’t notice it until their bills started dropping 40 to 50 percent,” says Toshiba’s Misra.

Philips also reports that reconstructed images now look closer to traditional scans thanks to improved technology.

“There are tools that allow the radiologist to adjust the image,” says Andy Mack, senior director, product management, CT at Philips. “And under the hood, with the algorithms themselves, we’re also incorporating activities to limit the change in the image quality.”

Radiologists and other team members may also be unaccustomed to the differences in workflow that monitoring dose requires.

For some facilities, the first step is building a dedicated dose management team and smoothing out workflow.

“Here in our department, we have a small group of people who are working on this to create the infrastructure, to look at the dose, compare it to other sites, and actively do something such as changing protocols,” says Kim. “I think manpower might be an issue at some places where they just might not have the time or resources to spend doing this.”

OEMs often offer consulting services that can also help build a dose management program or even out trends across different departments.


GE Healthcare offers a no-cost program called Blueprint Benchmark that compares a facility against an ideal model of 87 elements that make up up a dose management program.

“From that we’re learning where the gaps are in radiation management programs,” says Ken Denison, CT dose leader for GE Healthcare. “Not surprisingly, one of the biggest gaps is measuring it, if you’re not measuring it you can’t improve.”

June 2013 Magazine

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