Dosecheck: supporting patients and staff with software upgrade

We’ve been thrilled to see the impact which the installation of a new ‘Dosecheck’ software has had on Weston Park’s radiotherapy department since it was installed.

The system carries out additional, semi-automatedchecks on dosage strength and accuracy, and has helped streamline processes for checking treatment plans – something which is safety critical and was a time-consuming part of the hospital teams’ work.

Funded by Weston Park Cancer Charity, the system:

• Checks the whole dose distribution in 3D
• Checks the treatment plan
• Gives 3D analysis
• Saves valuable staff time
• Warns if the dose distribution is out of tolerance

It automatically loads patient plans into the treatment planning system and performs the necessary checks. It's semi-automatic and eases a number of time-intensive tasks.

This not only gives assurance for both patients and staff that a patient’s radiotherapy treatment plan is the best possible plan for them, but it also increases accuracy of design and calculation.

And, as treatment plans become more complex,independentand manual checks becomes more time-consuming and difficult to perform. Dosecheck has improved the check while reducing the time spent on it.

Previously, physicists would manually check each point in the treatment plan, which didn’t work for some patients –meaning staff may have to go through a long process of using linac machine-generated simulated measurements.