(Tuesday, 7/31/2018) 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Davidson Ballroom A
Optimizing Efficiency and Safety of Radiation Therapy Process
The radiotherapy (RT) process has evolved over the years with innovations in simulations, treatment planning, and treatment delivery. Image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) have gradually become the standard of care for many treatment sites, which demand a higher throughput even if the number of treatments per day remains the same. Finally, simulation, planning and treatment are traditionally sequential events, but are becoming more tightly intertwined, leading to an iterative RT process. Quality, safety and efficiency are the three key components of RT process. The increasing demand for higher efficiency and improved safety of the RT process without a significant increase in manpower poses serious challenges to medical physicists whose main responsibility is maintaining the quality of the RT process.
Root cause analysis and process change are traditionally performed when a major safety event happens. Managing the aftermath of a serious safety event is usually very time-consuming and costly as regulations require extensive reporting and immediate action plans for such an event. With the introduction of event reporting system, early signs of a major incidence might be identified and the problem fixed before it develops into a more serious one. Lean six sigma is also used to guide the process change to balance the competing needs for efficiency and safety. Practical clinical examples will be used to illustrate how these new tools are used to optimize both efficiency and safety of the RT process. Five year historical data on radiation therapy failures will be reviewed.
Learning Objectives:
1. Gain familiarity with the workflow of modern radiotherapy.
2. Understand the scope and challenges of managing modern radiotherapy therapy process.
3. Learn the Lean Six Sigma and FMEA approaches and their implementation in the radiotherapy workflow.
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