Impact of technological and departmental changes on incident rates in radiation oncology over a seventeen-year period.

Introduction: Advancements in technology and processes are designed to bring improvement. However, this is often achieved in parallel with increases in complexity, simultaneously presenting opportunities for new types of errors. This study aims to contextualise the impact of internal departmental changes upon radiation incidents and near misses recorded.

The development and implementation of a performance appraisal framework for radiation therapists in planning and simulation.

It is a challenge for radiation therapists (RTs) to keep pace with changing planning technology and techniques while maintaining appropriate skills levels. The ability of individual RTs to meet the demands of this constantly changing practice can only be assured through establishing clearly defined standards for practice and a systematic process for providing feedback on performance. Investigation into existing models for performance appraisal produced minimal results so a radiation therapy-specific framework was developed.

Improving plan quality for prostate volumetric-modulated arc therapy.

We critically evaluated the quality and consistency of volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) prostate planning at a single institution to quantify objective measures for plan quality and establish clear guidelines for plan evaluation and quality assurance. A retrospective analysis was conducted on 34 plans generated on the Pinnacle version 9.4 and 9.

Evaluation of a performance appraisal framework for radiation therapists in planning and simulation.

Introduction: Constantly evolving technology and techniques within radiation therapy require practitioners to maintain a continuous approach to professional development and training. Systems of performance appraisal and adoption of regular feedback mechanisms are vital to support this development yet frequently lack structure and rely on informal peer support.

Methods: A Radiation Therapy Performance Appraisal Framework (RT-PAF) for radiation therapists in planning and simulation was developed to define expectations of practice and promote a supportive and objective culture of performance and skills appraisal.

Assessment of prostatic fiducial marker introduction: patient morbidity, staff satisfaction and improved treatment field placement.

Introduction: Increased accuracy when using fiducial markers for prostate localisation is well documented. This project aimed to establish the improvement in accuracy when using gold markers for daily prostate localisation, to assess patient satisfaction and morbidity from the transrectal implantation of gold seed markers and establish staff attitudes towards the newly introduced processes.

Methods: Twenty patients with prostate cancer had three gold seeds implanted into the base, apex and central zone of the prostate transrectally using ultrasound guidance.