Radiation dose and safety: informatics standards and tools

Quality and safety improvements in radiology and medical imaging are substantially affected by radiation dose and its relationship to image quality and patient safety. Because radiation dose has many definitions and meanings, familiarity with and understanding of the basic nuances are important; modalities in general use radiation dose metrics that differ from patient radiation dose. Dose metric data differ among CT, interventional imaging, and digital radiography modalities. Informatics standards and tools assist in the extraction, collation, and analysis of these data and are described here. An informatics infrastructure can provide a pathway to automatically track and record dose metrics individually at the patient level and collectively through a regional or national radiation dose registry. Comparison of reference dose benchmarks to local and national practice values allows personnel at a given institution to objectively evaluate and optimize imaging procedures in regard to radiation dose metrics. Ultimately, enhanced patient care and safety are achieved.