title: Normalizing Heterogeneous Medical Imaging Data to Measure the Impact of Radiation Dose.
abstract: The production of medical imaging is a continuing trend in healthcare institutions. Quality assurance for planned radiation exposure situations (e.g. X-ray, computer tomography) requires examination-specific set-ups according to several parameters, such as patient's age and weight, body region and clinical indication. These data are normally stored in several formats and with different nomenclatures, which hinder the continuous and automatic monitoring of these indicators and the comparison between several institutions and equipment. This article proposes a framework that aggregates, normalizes and provides different views over collected indicators. The developed tool can be used to improve the quality of radiologic procedures and also for benchmarking and auditing purposes. Finally, a case study and several experimental results related to radiation exposure and productivity are presented and discussed.
authors.affiliation: DETI/IEETA, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal. bastiao@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Luís A Bastião
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.affiliation: DETI/IEETA, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Luís S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Ribeiro
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Milton
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.affiliation: Hospital Infante D. Pedro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Nuno
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Neves
authors.affiliation: Hospital Infante D. Pedro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Dulce
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Francisco
authors.affiliation: DETI/IEETA, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: DETI/IEETA, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: José Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Oliveira
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011873:Radiology Information Systems; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
keywords: ALARA; DICOM; Medical imaging; Monitoring; PACS; Quality of service