Establishing national medical imaging incident reporting systems: issues and challenges.

Radiology incident reporting systems provide one source of invaluable patient safety data that, when combined with appropriate analysis and action, can result in significantly safer health care, which is now an urgent priority for governments worldwide. Such systems require integration into a wider safety, quality, and risk management framework because many issues have global implications, and they also require an international classification scheme, which is now being developed. These systems can be used to inform global research activities as identified by the World Health Organization, many of which intersect with the activities of and issues seen in medical imaging departments. How to ensure that radiologists (and doctors in general) report incidents, and are engaged in the process, is a challenge. However, as demonstrated with the example of the Australian Radiology Events Register, this can be achieved when the reporting system is integrated with their professional organization and its other related activities (such as training and education) and administered by a patient safety organization.

Where failures occur in the imaging care cycle: lessons from the radiology events register.

Adverse events contribute to significant patient morbidity and mortality on a global scale, and this has been documented in a number of international studies. Despite this, there is limited understanding of medical imaging's involvement in such events. Incident reporting is a key feature of high-reliability organizations because, understandably, it is essential to know where things go wrong and why as the very first step in formulating preventative and corrective strategies. Although anesthesiology has led the way, health care in general has been slow to adopt this technique, and this includes medical imaging. Knowledge as to where medical imaging incidents are initiated and detected, and why, is not well documented or appreciated, although this is critical information in relation to quality improvement. Using an online radiology reporting system, the authors therefore sought to gain further insight and also ascertain where failures are located in the imaging cycle, and whether different incidents sources provide different information. Last, the authors sought to examine the resilience of the imaging system using these incident data.