Quality assurance in radiotherapy. How to improve the effectiveness and completeness of an electronic patient's chart.
A checking form was introduced in order to test the completeness of electronic and paper patient's charts in a radiotherapy department which had introduced record-and-verify system (RVS) and to improve tha staff performance. The chosen items for the electronic chart were 9 and 5 for paper chart. 223 patients were reviewed in two phases. The data analysis was based on a scoring method, attributing a positive score (+1) to the operator's good behaviour, a negative score (-1) to the lack of data input and a neutral score (0) to the inapplicable situation. The average global score increased from 0.4 to 0.7: in A (lowest complexity) category from 0.37 to 0.64, in B category from 0.4 to 0.89, in C category from 0.48 to 0.61.
Dipartimento di Radioterapia, AUSL BR1, Ospedale Perrino, Brindisi, Italy. portaluri@hotmail.com
Maurizio
M
Portaluri
Sergio
S
Casciaro
Santa
S
Bambace
Francesco
F
Tramacere
Ernesto
E
Casciaro
Virginia
V
Recchia
Albarosa
A
Sanzo
Giorgio
G
Pili
Vittorio
V
Didonna
Alessandro
A
Distante
D005568:Forms and Records Control / Q000379:methods; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008122:Local Area Networks; D008499:Medical Records / Q000592:standards; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010338:Pathology, Clinical / Q000379:methods; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011878:Radiotherapy; D020266:Radiotherapy, Conformal; D015203:Reproducibility of Results