Radiation Safety Alert

In recent years, multiple articles have highlighted the increased risk of developing cancer from ionizing radiation. The risk increases with higher radiation doses, and accumulates with repeated scans. Hospitals with computerized physician order entry systems (CPOE) have the unique opportunity to use decision support on radiation safety to influence a physician's ordering practice in real-time. An ideal decision support tool for radiation safety will educate the physician about the dangers of cumulative ionizing radiation, present the patient's image history, and guide the provider to the best modality that meets the patient's diagnostic needs with as little radiation exposure as possible. The design challenge is to create a decision support tool that appropriately protects the investigators patients from overutilization of CAT scans, without inadvertently leading to underutilization of CAT scans or inappropriate utilization of alternative tests. This research protocol proposes to study one such design at a large, academic medical center.