Digitalisering in de radiodiagnostiek: Gevolgen voor de patientveiligheid

More and more radiology departments change from conventional to digital imaging techniques. This change can have a beneficial or an adverse effect on the resulting image quality and patient dose. In this report the consequences of a change to digital radiology for patient safety are investigated for the Health Care Inspectorate. Apart from that, the quality assurance of digital systems and their future perspectives are studied. The main conclusion of this research is that the use of digital systems often does not lead to a reduction of patient dose, but that this reduction can be achieved in most cases with some optimization. It is expected that digital systems will become cheaper and better in the near future and some new techniques will emerge. Important advantages of digital radiology are the possibilities for image processing, the transportability of the images, and the fact that every exposure yields an image. Disadvantages are the high costs of changing to digital systems, the lower resolving power, and possibly negligence. Generally, a change to digital systems has severe consequences for the working process. Special protocols for the quality assurance of digital systems are needed. These protocols need to be drawn up when the commissioning tests are carried out, i.e. before clinical use, to prevent problems with image quality and patient dose