The Connecticut Hospital Association and Bayer have formed an alliance to establish the nation”™s first-ever statewide radiation dose management repository for patients undergoing certain radiological procedures.
The repository will use Radimetrics, a radiation and contrast dose management and analytics tool that provides clinicians with data needed to help ensure patients receive the lowest radiation dosage necessary. The goal is for clinicians to be able to share the data in order to benchmark radiation exposure, according to the Wallingford-based Connecticut Hospital Association.
The group noted that patients often undergo multiple diagnostic imaging procedures involving radiation, frequently in different provider locations, making it difficult to know the cumulative dose they have received. In some circumstances, prolonged, high-dose exposure to radiation can have adverse effects on patients.
Keeping track of radiation dosage across procedures may help identify those risks and allow physicians to take steps to reduce patient exposure, the hospital association said. By benchmarking radiation dosage throughout the association’s network of hospitals and the state, the organization and Bayer said they hope patients in the future will be empowered to track their own radiation exposure.
In the coming months, hospitals in Connecticut will use Bayer”™s Radimetrics Enterprise Platform to collect and analyze data at the statewide level, allowing providers to benchmark radiation dosage, pursue quality improvements and develop standard clinical practices.
Utilizing data from certain imaging studies, the repository will maintain radiation dose information when patients visit participating hospital association member institutions for diagnostic procedures.
