ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2944

Interdiscplinary - Other

ESTRO 2024

impact of music on patient experience, which calls for further research to determine its actual effect during radiation.

Keywords: Music during treatment

References:

1. Köhler, F., Martin, Z-S., Hertrampf, R-S., Gäbel, C., Kessler, J., Ditzen, B., et al. (2020). Music therapy in the psychosocial treatment of adult cancer patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 651. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00651.

2219

Digital Poster

Breaking boundaries: improve flow and create a positive work environment for radiation technologists

Pascale Simons, Lotte van Daal, Moniek Verstegen, Ludo de Kleijn, Jeroen Buijsen, Martien van Bussel

Maastro, clinic, Maastricht, Netherlands

Purpose/Objective:

In 2022, radiotherapy technologists (RTT), radiation oncologists (RTO) and patient planners (PPL) indicated that it had become increasingly difficult to schedule all patients (within the desired period) for a CT scan. The CT had become a bottleneck capacity and a cause of deteriorated flow times within some care lines. In addition, the CT programs caused a lot of workload, rework and stress, especially for RTT and PPL. In a prior attempt to enhance CT capacity and reduce work load in 2022, multiple actions had been taken, which only led to modest improvements. The problems were not solved structurally and further actions were difficult to come by. Since consolidation was not acceptable, we used the structured Toyota problem solving method, to achieve more durable and robust improvements.

Material/Methods:

In February 2023, a multidisciplinary group from all involved disciplines, i.e. RTO, RTT, PPL, clinical physicists, met periodically. They first unraveled this multi-faceted problem and goals were determined. The primary goal was that the CT should no longer constitute a limitation for achieving flow times. In addition, the CT should be a pleasant workplace for RTT, where delivering quality goes hand in hand with efficient execution. Process data was analyzed in detail to increase understanding of the problem which was broken down into smaller sub-problems to get more focus. Root causes were determined and potential countermeasures were defined, which were gradually introduced in the following months. In June 2023, a major update of the electronic health record system was performed, which resulted in major process and performance changes. The CT utilization was also affected. However, the detailed process analysis and the implemented countermeasures served as relevant input for the software design.

Results: