Patient safety during radiological examinations: a nationwide survey of residency training hospitals in Taiwan

OBJECTIVES: Variations in radiological examination procedures and patient load lead to variations in standards of care related to patient safety and healthcare quality. To understand the status of safety measures to protect patients undergoing radiological examinations at residency training hospitals in Taiwan, a follow-up survey evaluating the full spectrum of diagnostic radiology procedures was conducted. DESIGN: Questionnaires covering 12 patient safety-related themes throughout the examination procedures were mailed to the departments of diagnostic radiology with residency training programmes in 19 medical centres (with >500 beds) and 17 smaller local institutions in Taiwan. After receiving the responses, all themes in 2014 were compared between medical centres and local institutions by using χ(2) or 2-sample t-tests. PARTICIPANTS: Radiology Directors or Technology Chiefs of medical centres and local institutions in Taiwan participated in this survey by completing and returning the questionnaires. RESULTS: The response rates of medical centres and local institutions were 95% and 100%, respectively. As indicated, large medical centres carried out more frequent clinically ordered, radiologist-guided patient education to prepare patients for specific examinations (CT, 28% vs 6%; special procedures, 78% vs 44%) and incident review and analysis (89% vs 47%); however, they required significantly longer access time for MRI examinations (7.00±29.50 vs 3.50±3.50 days), had more yearly incidents of large-volume contrast-medium extravasation (2.75±1.00 vs 1.00±0.75 cases) and blank radiographs (41% vs 8%), lower monthly rates of suboptimal (but interpretable) radiographs (0.00±0.01% vs 0.64±1.84%) and high-risk reminder reporting (0.01±0.16% vs 1.00±1.75%) than local institutions. CONCLUSIONS: Our study elucidates the status of patient safety in diagnostic radiology in Taiwan, thereby providing helpful information to improve patient safety guidelines needed for medical imaging in the future.