A study published April 8 in Academic Radiology listed 6 barriers to reducing CT doses with the goal of reducing life-time exposure to ionizing radiation and cancer risk concerns. When organizational leaders from 19 health care systems were interviewed, six consistent primary themes were identified as barriers to dose optimization:

1. Resistance to change: Preference for image appearance that results from higher-dose exams and concerns about diagnostic accuracy with lower radiation doses
2. Limited time and resources: Difficulty managing other needs in the department
3. Complex organizational structure: Size and decision-making style make change difficult to implement.
4. Lack of leadership support: Dose concerns compete with other concerns, such as patient safety.
5. Variations in CT equipment: The challenge of optimizing dose across different machines and manufacturers
6. Variability in CT protocols: Differences in types of protocols and use of these

LANDUAER outlines below how OPTIMIZE^TM addresses these barriers:

1. Resistance to change - Provides a dedicated board-certified physicist, who specializes in CT and Fluoro, and can directly speak with radiologists to address concerns about image quality.  True “optimization” delivers the maximum image quality with the lowest radiation dose thereby ensuring the lowest number of false negative results and increasing patient outcomes.
2. Limited time and resources - Using LANDAUER OPTIMIZETM as a service eliminates time demands on your staff.  The OPTIMIZE service completely handles the monitoring and tracking of outliers, then the board-certified physicists give insights and advice to the radiologists and CT techs about changes in protocols or other changes to improve the optimization of images.
3. Complex organizational structure - LANDAUER has years of experience in the medical physics field with over 70 imaging physics staff members, LANDAUER has the experience and depth to help your organization implement a continuous quality improvement program for patient dose management.
4. Lack of leadership support – By fully outsourcing your dose management program with the LANDAUER OPTIMIZETM service, your leadership can rest assured your patient dose management is being taken care of by a dedicated team of experts and compliance is guaranteed.
5. Variations in CT equipment – Since the LANDAUER team has over 250 facilities in their program they have seen every kind of CT scanner from almost every manufacturer.  Our team knows the idiosyncrasies for each model and can adjust our recommendations accordingly.  
6. Variability in CT protocols – Part of the advantage of using the LANDAUER OPTIMIZE^TM service is that we have a protocol library that is fine-tuned for different scanner types.  We have pre-tested protocols for every kind of procedure, including pediatrics.  Experience makes the difference.  

Learn more today about LANDAUER OPTIMIZE and how it can help you break the barriers that may be keeping your staff and patients at risk.

Download the Academic Radiology study.