An effective and efficient system to archive and extract information with regard to radiation doses has been developed.

The November issue of the American College of Radiology reported that the study lays emphasis on the technique discovered which acts as a source to record radiation doses administered to the patient at the facility. This enables the medical officers in charge to make decisions with regard to health care and safety of the patient.

A pipeline, consisting of a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) that stored images of the CT examinations administered, was executed. This also assisted in evaluating and extracting information with regard to radiation doses. This research was conducted at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia."The "pipeline" can process both retrospective and prospective CT studies, in order to make dose information available for all CT examinations at our institution, as well as examinations acquired at other institutions provided for review or re-evaluation," said Tessa S. Cook, MD, lead author of the study.

"The goal of extracting and analyzing radiation dose information is to assess patient exposure to radiation from CT. By storing radiation dose information both retrospectively and prospectively, we can generate dose report cards indicating patients' estimated lifetime radiation dose for all studies obtained at our institution," said Cook.

"Extracted radiation dose information can be used to perform a variety of analyses aimed at quality assurance and patient safety. The automated extraction "pipeline" for radiation dose information allows us to be more cognizant of radiation dose to our patients, thus resulting in improved patient care and management," she said.