Patient Dose Monitoring: RDM’s contribution for the radiographers

The training of radiographers is essential insofar as they represent the first link in the chain in the control of the dose delivered to the patient.
As one of the medical personnel responsible for the dose cycle, the radiographer plays an important role in Patient Radiation Safety.

At the end of each irradiating radiological examination, the radiographer is able to visualize the patient exposure level with a color code (defined according to the set of DRLs). Consequently, he/she can justify any radiation dose overexposure by adding a comment directly on the Radiation Dose Monitor (RDM) interface.
In addition, the easy addition of a patient’s weight and size, and the reassignment of modified procedures under examination (a CAP exam becomes a CAP-head, for example), allows the radiographer to comply in a few seconds with the new EURATOM directives of February 2018.

It has been found that this first level of reading and control naturally results in a significant reduction of the dose. In particular, the radiographer’s main mission lies in the real-time management and analysis of the doses delivered to patients, which enable him/her to:

o Justify any exceeded dose
o Check the BMI
o Reassign wrong procedure
o Present detailed information of an examination or patient (cumulative dose by anatomic region)
o Visualize dose history

Thierry Blanpain, radiographer at the University Hospital of Reims, declares: “Using the RDM software is relatively easy, the patient dose data is transferred automatically from the radiological equipment. Each patient is recorded in the DACS RDM. So, at any time, we can visualize the dose that a patient has received from several radiological examinations and at different sites in the hospital.”

Moreover, the radiographer will be especially prominent at the next edition of the European Congress of Radiology (ECR). A must-see event for European radiologists, the ECR 2020 will dedicate a space and scientific sessions in English and French for radiographers. The program of this event – 5 days dedicated to the function of the radiographer and piloted by the European Federation of Radiographers Societies (EFRS) – brings together all national radiographers associations (MERM), at the European and AFPPE (French) levels.