Prioritization of Failures in Radiation Therapy Delivery

Abstract

There is high level of risks and failures in radiation therapy delivery system for many reasons. These small failures in the system may cause major harms. Radiology failure mode and effect analysis (R-FMEA) is a qualitative risk assessment tool to proactively identify risks that threaten patients in a healthcare process. The main purpose of R-FMEA is correcting potential failures prior to adverse events occur. However, currently used R-FMEA has some major shortcomings. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework for radiation therapy delivery in oncology setting to overcome these shortcomings. Results of application of the proposed framework in a real case study showed that, our proposed framework can minimize the future occurrence of failures. Then, it will improve patients’ and personnel’s safety in the radiology department consequently.