Optimizing Workflow

Creating an efficient workflow not only maximizes your productivity, it can also ensure greater accuracy and help improve the patient experience. Here’s how SGRT can benefit your process:

• Evaluating Treatment Strategies: Deep inhalation breath hold (DIBH) has been a common technique to help reduce respiratory motion but was often considered difficult to deliver. Older DIBH systems either required a semi-invasive, valve-controlled snorkel to forcibly manage the patient’s breathing or a physical device to monitor one position on the patient that was not always an acceptable surrogate for tumor position.

With a complete SGRT solution, patient tolerance for DIBH can be evaluated during simulation. And during treatment planning, the benefits of administering a DIBH can be weighed against the patient’s ability to assist the treatment’s delivery. Adopting an SGRT solution allows patient evaluation and instruction to be conducted on a CT without impacting the scheduling of the treatment room.

• Keeping Eyes on the Patient: Many clinics have reduced staffing levels to the point that only a single therapist is used to deliver some or most patient treatments. While a patient monitoring camera and screen are required in many jurisdictions, the distractions caused by other patients, doctors, treatment consoles, and other computer screens (sometimes there can be six or more screens on a single linear accelerator) can grab the therapist’s attention. With the high dose rate linear accelerators delivering 2000 Gy/min or more, the patient movement that’s unseen by the therapist can result in a significant dose delivered to healthy tissue while the treatment area fails to receive the prescribed dose.

SGRT provides a second set of eyes on the patient. Any movement beyond the prescribed tolerance will result in a pause in treatment and an alert to the therapist. The patient is safe from mistreatment and the treatment delivery can be completed as prescribed.

SGRT solutions can help manage workflow better and provide more accurate placement and, in turn, better treatments for patients. To request a free demo and discover how C-RAD SGRT systems can benefit your radiation therapy or proton therapy practice: