Just as helicopter traffic reporters use their "bird's eye view" to route drivers around roadblocks safely, radiation oncologists treating a variety of cancers can use new guidelines developed by a West Virginia University researcher to reduce mistakes in data transfer and more safely treat their patients.
Ramon Alfredo Siochi--the director of medical physics at WVU--led a task group to help ensure the accuracy of data that dictates a cancer patient's radiation therapy. The measures he and his colleagues recommended in their new report safeguard against medical errors in a treatment that more than half of all cancer patients receive.
"The most common mistake that happens in radiation oncology is the transfer of information from one system to another," Siochi, the associate chair for the School of Medicine's Department of Radiation Oncology, said. "This report gives you a good, bird's-eye view of the way data is moving around in your department."
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Medical Physics. Research Paper:
