GE Healthcare’s Dose Blueprint Launched Alongside EUROSAFE and the New EU Directive on Dose Management at ECR

EUROSAFE, a radiation protection initiative from the European Society of Radiology (ESR) was finally launched at this year’s ECR meeting in Vienna, in conjunction with a recently introduced EU Directive on dose management.

GE Healthcare (Chalfont St. Giles, UK) have taken a lead alongside other companies in driving the initiative forward and through its novel Dose Blueprint framework aims to ensure that radiology centers implement the initiative effectively.

“At the launch session here today the room was completely packed showing the concern felt amongst the radiology community for radiation protection for the patient,” said Antoine Jomier, General Manager of DOSE at GE Healthcare, who leads activity around dose management.

EUROSAFE has been initiated by the ESR to embody a holistic approach to radiation protection. A similar scheme initiated by the American College of Radiology and the Radiological Society of North America is already in place in the US called Image Wisely.

Mr. Jomier explained that exposure to ionizing radiation was increasing. “The overall exposure of the population due to medical imaging radiation was just 20% of the total exposure but this has increased dramatically to 50% in recent years.”

He highlighted that the issue was not the dose per se but the variation in dose between centers or even within a single center. “Sometimes this dose can vary by a factor of 2 for the same clinical questions. This needs to be improved because both patients and regulators are increasingly concerned about radiation dose.”

Dose exposure is increasing overall because of the increase of the use of imaging for diagnosis, treatment, and treatment follow up. “However, despite the questions about suitable dosing levels, it is abundantly clear that the way exposure is managed and the way operators are trained and the way processes are handled can be improved across all centers.”

In practice, EUROSAFE will guide chief radiologists or hospital directors on how to demonstrate quality of care with a series of robust processes in place around patient dose management. If centers fail to show that they have taken adequate measures then they run the risk of losing their license to operate CT scanners, for instance.

Mr. Jomier described Dose Blueprint: “We have a new service or program, launched here at the ECR, called Dose Excellence Blueprint. This is a project plan to implement the best practice in terms of dose management, with the objective of improving patient safety and quality of care,” explained Mr. Jomier.

The Dose Blueprint is based on three pillars, said Mr. Jomier. These are leadership, practices, and technology, all of which directly impact dose performance and lead to better management. “At GE healthcare we have strived to produce technology that provides the same image quality with lower dose across all modalities. We use DoseWatch to collect data around dose management and alert the user if dose is too high. Finally, we aim to educate users in this with Dose Blueprint.”

EUROSAFE coincides with the rollout of a new European Directive (chapter 7 of the EC Directive; articles 55 to 61) that brings in new regulations on dose management at radiology centers incorporating the need to protect both patients and workers from radiation doses, as well as responsibilities, procedures and training requirements. This includes increasing justification and optimization of the dose: “Centers need to demonstrate that everything is done to optimize the dose.”

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