Usage of Regular Safety Surveys to Assess and Improve Safety Culture in the Radiation Treatment Department

Aim: The Radiation Treatment Quality Assurance Committee (RTQAC) is a multidisciplinary committee within the Radiation Treatment department. As a newly established committee in 2013, the RTQAC had a desire to obtain feedback from staff and to evaluate the existing safety culture. Safety culture surveys have been continued with the aim to assess and improve the safety culture within our department. Process: The RTQAC has since completed six safety culture surveys. The surveys have ranged from 9-15 questions in length with the most recent one sent in 2021. Some questions were edited or modified with each survey as the committee saw fit. The surveys were sent to all current staff across various disciplines in the Radiation Treatment department. Themes have emerged over the years as with some general categories, including: Reporting Program, Barriers to Reporting, Communication and Discussion of Incidents and Suggestions for Improving Quality and Safety. Results are collected and analyzed in comparison with previous results and are shared with the department in a summarizing report. Benefits/Challenges: Regular collection of safety culture survey results have highlighted successes within the department and the RTQAC. It has provided staff an opportunity to talk openly and anonymously about safety concerns. Themes emerging from results have provided content for group discussion and review of potential areas of improvement. Opportunities for education in the department have been highlighted. The results have also allowed the RTQAC to reflect on the scope of the committee tasks. One consistent challenge faced has been the low number of respondents, which limits creation of conclusions and potential suggestions or recommendations. There can also be a great deal of time associated with reviewing a large number of comments. The committee takes all comments seriously and some negative comments can be difficult to read. Impact/Outcomes: The implementation of safety culture surveys in our department has proven invaluable. It has allowed the committee to obtain current opinions about safety culture and incident learning processes given that these are dynamic and changing over time. Trends, both positive and negative, have been observed over the last 8 years. Safety culture is something that has to be constantly evolving as it can change with various staff and external challenges such as COVID-19. Copyright © 2022

Usage of Regular Safety Surveys to Evaluate and Strengthen Safety Culture in the Radiation Treatment Department

Purpose: The Radiation Treatment Quality Assurance Committee (RTQAC) is a multidisciplinary committee within the Radiation Treatment department. As a newly established committee in 2013, the RTQAC had a desire to obtain feedback from staff and to evaluate the existing safety culture. This practice has continued in subsequent years, with six surveys conducted over an 8-year period. The purpose of the safety culture surveys is to measure staff comfort with reporting incidents and the informationgathering process which follow an incident, to gather staff feedback on ways to improve the quality of treatment delivery, to measure and assess the current state of the safety culture in the department, and to identify themes from the results to drive quality improvement initiatives. Material(s) and Method(s): The safety culture surveys are developed in an electronic format and have been sent to all staff across various disciplines in the Radiation Treatment department, including radiation oncologists, medical physicists, physics associates, electronics engineers, radiation therapists, nurses, and clerical staff. The most recent survey was conducted in 2021. The surveys have ranged from nine to fifteen questions in length. Many of the questions have remained the same across the years, while some have been modified with each survey as seen fit by the committee. Responses are collected in both a multiple-choice format as well as written responses. Responses collected from each survey are analyzed, and when possible, compared against similar questions asked in previous years. The results are compiled into a report which is shared with the department. Result(s): Safety culture is something that is dynamic, as it can change with the implementation of new procedures, updates to incident reporting systems, changes in staffing, and external challenges such as COVID-19. Regular collection of safety culture survey results have highlighted both successes and areas of improvement within the department and the RTQAC. While in many areas, trends are positive, those areas which illustrate progressively negative responses have identified common issues which can be addressed. Feedback that has been collected has subsequently helped guide quality improvement initiatives. Conclusion(s): The implementation of safety culture surveys in our department has proven invaluable. It has provided staff an opportunity to talk openly and anonymously about safety concerns. Through assessment of responses, quality improvement strategies can be undertaken, which in turn can advance the culture of safety in the program. Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

On stable parameter estimation and short-term forecasting with quantified uncertainty with application to COVID-19 transmission

A novel optimization algorithm for stable parameter estimation and forecasting from limited incidence data for an emerging outbreak is proposed. The algorithm combines a compartmental model of disease progression with iteratively regularized predictor-corrector numerical scheme aimed at the reconstruction of case reporting ratio, transmission rate, and effective reproduction number. The algorithm is illustrated with real data on COVID-19 pandemic in the states of Georgia and New York, USA. The techniques of functional data analysis are applied for uncertainty quantification in extracted parameters and in future projections of new cases.