ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2799

Interdisciplinary - Health economics & health services research

ESTRO 2024

1092

Digital Poster

Call for action: The need for an incident learning system in Eastern Mediterranean Region and Turkey

Iqbal AL AMRI 1 , Zahid AL MANDHARI 1 , M. Saiful Huq 2

1 Sultan Qaboos Comprehensive Cancer Care and Research Center, Radiotherapy, Muscat, Oman. 2 UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Radiotherapy, Pittsburgh, USA

Purpose/Objective:

Establishment of a culture of safety is paramount at every facility involved in the care of patients using radiation therapy. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the critical need for the establishment of a comprehensive radiotherapy incident learning system (ILS) in Eastern Mediterranean Region and Turkey (EMRO+T). This region has unique cultural aspects that can affect radiation safety in patient care. An example of this is similarity of names which contributed to 38% of near misses in patient identification at one tertiary center in Saudi Arabia [1].

Material/Methods:

We performed a survey to examine the current state of radiotherapy ILS in the EMRO+T countries. The survey questions included , but were not limited to, the following: (i) classification of the institutions, (ii) number of patients treated annually, (iii) technologies, treatment techniques and modalities available for treatment, (iv) existence of a local ILS (v) adoption of international standard guidelines for the management of an existing local ILS, (vi) person responsible for the management and reporting of incidents and (vii) if the respondents felt the necessity for the establishment of a regional ILS in the (EMRO + T) countries.

Study data were collected and managed using REDCap electronic data capture tools hosted at Sultan Qaboos Comprehensive Cancer Care and Research Center in Oman [2,3,4]

The survey was distributed to all known radiation oncologists, medical physicists, and radiation protection officers. The list was provided through Middle East Society for Therapeutic Radiation Oncology (MESTRO), Middle East Federation of Organizations of Medical Physics (MEFOMP) and other regional societies through them.

Results:

The survey was distributed to 671 participants, with 105 replies in one month. 59% of the respondents were from Governmental hospitals, 61% had a radiation safety program in place, 46% have an ILS, and 27% did not know what an ILS is. The major barriers identified for establishing an ILS are: (i) absence of leadership support (48%) and (ii) non-existence of the culture for creating an ILS (45%). There was a strong agreement (82.7%) among the respondents to create a regional ILS across the EMRO+T countries.

Conclusion: