Framework Development: Standardizing Definition of Advanced Practice Radiation Therapy Activities for Clinical Workload Quantification.

Purpose: Advanced practice (AP) in radiation therapy (RT) is being implemented around the globe. In an effort to advance the understanding of the similarities and differences in APRT roles in Ontario, Canada, a community of practice (CoP) sought ways to provide quantitative data on the nature of APRT clinical activities and the frequency with which these activities were being executed.

Methods: In 2017, a consensus building project involving 20 APRTs and 14 radiation therapy (RT) department managers in Ontario was completed to establish a mechanism to quantify APRTs' clinical impact.

A Clinical Consensus Approach to Developing a New Funding Model for Radiation Services in Ontario.

In 2021, Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario) introduced a quality-based procedure model for the funding of radiation treatment (RT) in Ontario. This model ties reimbursement to patient care activities, ensuring equity and transparency in funding. Over 200 RT interprofessionals (oncologists, therapists and physicists) participated on 22 expert panels to establish or identify 288 evidence-based RT protocols and 672 quality expectations (QEs) to optimally deliver RT, which eventually led to the micro-costing of all protocols.

Tensegrity Metamaterials: Toward Failure-Resistant Engineering Systems through Delocalized Deformation.

Failure of materials and structures is inherently linked to localized mechanisms, from shear banding in metals, to crack propagation in ceramics and collapse of space-trusses after buckling of individual struts. In lightweight structures, localized deformation causes catastrophic failure, limiting their application to small strain regimes. To ensure robustness under real-world nonlinear loading scenarios, overdesigned linear-elastic constructions are adopted.