UPDATE (30 April 2019): Deadline for submissions has been extended by two weeks, to 15 May 2019.
Radiation medical professionals and students can submit proposals to be included in an IAEA training program demonstrating a strong radiation safety culture in healthcare. The deadline for submissions is 15 May 2019, and the top three participants will receive a travel grant to present their projects at the IAEA in Vienna at the launch of this training.
Safety culture is about people, their attitudes, and how they shape everyday relationships in their team and with patients. In medicine, it is a prerequisite for establishing well-functioning institutions that place safety of patients first. Errors in radiology, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy can be prevented if an institution has a strong safety culture.
To assist medical professionals with this challenge, the IAEA is developing a training programme structured around ten safety traits identified as essential for improving radiation safety culture in medical institutions. These are:
- Personal accountability
- Questioning attitude
- Effective safety communication
- Leadership safety values and actions
- Decision-making
- Respectful work environment
- Continuous learning
- Problem identification and resolution
- Environment for raising concerns
- Work processes
The traits can be adapted to the situations found in imaging, nuclear medicine and therapy facilities to assure that patients’ exposure to radiation is justified and optimized. Examples of implementation of safety traits could be related to leaders being committed to safety, staff willing to take personal accountability for medical errors, or an effective team’s communication with patients’ safety in mind.
“As part of the training curriculum to be released in 2020, we would like to see members of the medical community share their successful approaches demonstrating each of the safety traits,” said Debbie Gilley, IAEA Radiation Protection Specialist.
