The entire house of medicine will be observing Patient Safety Awareness Week (PSAW) next week, March 9-15, 2025. This is an opportunity to bring attention to safety initiatives, acknowledge staff leading safety advances and celebrate accomplishments in quality improvement.
Safety activities are inherently built into most radiation oncology processes from extensive quality assurance steps to comprehensive quality management initiatives. To support its members and the community, ASTRO has a long history of leading activities toward a shared goal of promoting the best care for patients.
RO-ILS: Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System® is an online safety data collection tool that stores sensitive information confidentially with a patient safety organization that provides federal protections. This safety-focused initiative is co-sponsored by ASTRO and AAPM with support from ASRT, AAMD, Varian, Sun Nuclear and other corporate supporters. Radiation oncology has been a leader in this space as few comparable national specialty-specific programs exist and none with the same abundance of publicly accessible education like RO-ILS. RO-ILS reports include trends, de-identified case examples, and possible mitigation strategies to trigger introspection and guide improvement.
During PSAW, everyone in the radiation oncology community is invited to participate in a Patient Safety Conversation Hour on Tuesday, March 11, from 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. During this virtual interactive event, attendees will discuss curated RO-ILS events in small groups and then debrief with safety experts. All members of the team, including radiation oncologists, dosimetrists, etc., are encouraged to attend as communal learning thrives when people with diverse perspectives share their experiences and lessons learned.
PSAW is also a great opportunity to promote RO-ILS participation, highlight to all staff the importance of event reporting (especially near misses) and celebrate engagement, such as by initiating great catch awards.
Additionally, ASTRO offers other mechanisms to engage in the quality and safety space, especially during PSAW, including:
- APEx Accreditation: ASTRO’s accreditation program is predicated on a self-assessment that provides practices the opportunity to self-study, measure themselves against practice standards and implement quality improvement initiatives. Pursue APEx accreditation and explore APEx’s new radiopharmaceutical therapy designation.
- Safety White Papers: These consensus recommendations provide the latest guidance on promoting safe and high-quality treatment with various delivery techniques. Read the most recent adaptive radiation therapy safety white paper and keep an eye out for the upcoming radiopharmaceutical therapy paper awaiting publication.
- Peer-to-Peer Match Program: In radiation oncology, peer review is a regular activity in which clinicians receive feedback from colleagues to inform decision making and improve care. If you are looking for someone to engage with consider ASTRO’s Peer-to-Peer Match initiative which connects radiation oncologists with limited peer review options, such as those in small and/or rural practices, to support learning.
Radiation oncology professionals make a commitment every day to offer the best care to patients with cancer and other conditions needing treatment. Join us in sharing your safety messages on social media with the hashtag #PSAW25 and #ROsafety and consider using ASTRO-provided handouts for individual or group photos.
ASTRO and the radiation oncology community have made a lot of progress and continuously work to support high-quality and safe radiation therapy. Thank for the medical associations and vendors sponsoring and supporting the RO-ILS program (see below). As a field, we have a lot to be proud of!
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