If you’re a Radiation Safety Officer (RSO), you know how challenging it can be to ensure that every physician and employee wear a dosimeter. You can’t be everywhere at once, so you rely on professionalism and good faith that all those who should be monitoring their daily and cumulative radiation dose, are doing just that. Of course, you have your suspicions — when dosimeters return from processing, you notice a cardiologist, given the nature of her job, appears to have an unusually low cumulative dose. The physician insists she is wearing her badge for every procedure, so there’s really nothing you can do.

This scenario is becoming a thing of the past. Instead of forgetting about safety protocols, physicians are embracing them. I have walked down hallways of hospitals where physicians or employees are huddled over their phones, discussing their radiation dose from a recent procedure. These hospitals provide a glimpse of the future of radiation monitoring: complete physician and employee buy-in.

What do these facilities have that others do not? They switched to a digital dosimeter - the Instadose®+ wireless digital dosimeter, that allows wearers to take an active role in checking their daily or cumulative radiation dose. The Instadose+ dosimeter provides a user with immediate feedback whenever he or she needs to know their daily or cumulative radiation dose exposure. It is also a tool that an RSO can employ to encourage noncompliant users to see their own radiation exposure and wear their dosimeter whenever they are in a procedure in an effort to safeguard their health. Now, an RSO has the ability to run a report any time and pinpoint exactly when a user's dose exposure varies, to ensure a user is wearing their dosimeter.

RSO’s are governed by very strict federal and state regulations for radiation safety. When the tedious process of collecting dosimeters and conducting time-consuming investigations becomes almost unbearable, it’s important to remember there is another option that can make their job easier. The Instadose+ dosimeter can completely change how an RSO interacts with the people he or she is working to protect.

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

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