A fluoroscopic credentialing/safety program at a large research hospital

The Brigham and Women's Hospital is an approximately 700 bed broad-scope licensed facility with a vigorous fluoroscopy service. Concomitant with this service is an equally robust quality management program to safeguard both patient and personnel from excessive radiation doses. The FDA, in an attempt to avoid serious skin injury for certain fluoroscopically guided procedures, issued a Public Health Advisory in 1994. Four years later the institutional Radiation Safety Committee voted to expand an existing fluoroscopic safety course to include a more formal credentialing/safety requirement. The specific parameters associated with this program follow.