Change Management in Radiotherapy

Question 1

Which file format allowed for standardisation in radiotherapy?

Answer 1

DICOM

Question 2

What are the 4 main types of DICOM files for radiotherapy?

Answer 2

RTSTRUCT
RTPLAN
RTDOSE
RTIMAGE

Question 3

What is IHE-RO in change management?

Answer 3

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise.
It is an initiative for improving the safety, efficiency and funcitonality of the clinic. This is acheived by developing IHE integration profiles (specify industry standards for addressing specific clinical problems and ambiguities). The connectivities are tested annually at a connectathon.
It was created in 2004 as part of ASTRO’s Target Safely initiative.

Question 4

What is Change Management?

Answer 4

Defined activities and roles to manage and control a changeduring the planning, execution and review of a project.

Question 5

How is change measured in change management?

Answer 5

Changeis measured against the project baseline, which is a detailed description of the project’s scope, budget, schedule, and plans to manage quality, risk, issues, andchange.

Question 6

What can the justifications for upgrading software be?

Answer 6

End-of-life

• With “end-of-life” - companies stop developing
• Functionality not developed
• Security not kept up-to-date

Compatibility / resilience

• Maximise integration with new standards and data formats
• Conversion / interfaces may cause issues

Reduces costs

• Spending time on workarounds for old software costs
• Fixed glitches and bugs saves time

Increased morale
-Staff like to know they are using the latest / most advanced versions

Upgrade at leisure
-Better to upgrade at leisure rather than being forced to