As with other imaging procedures, CT scans are safe when used with care. Radiologists and x-ray technologists have been trained to use the minimum amount of radiation necessary to obtain the needed results. The amount of radiation used in most CT exams is small and the benefits greatly outweigh the risk of harm.

At Lake Health, radiation dose reduction and the safety of our patients is always a priority of our entire staff, including radiologists, the technologists who perform the exams, administrators, engineers and physicists.

Below is how the radiation dose minimized:

Safety Checks

Lake Health employees follow strict procedures for checking and double-checking patient information and the type of exam to be performed.  That’s why our technologists will ask you for two identifiers –your name and date of birth- and what type of exam you are to have performed, then verifying this information with your doctor’s order.  This simple act ensures accuracy and helps prevent a person from receiving an unnecessary exam.

Smart Protocols

The most important tool we use to reduce radiation exposure is called a “protocol”.  A protocol is a detailed description of how each exam should be conducted, how much radiation to use, how many passes to make over the patient’s body part, and so on.  Our radiologists, in collaboration with our physicists and technologists, supervise the creation and editing of these protocols.   We pre-program these protocols into our CT scanners.  The technologist performing the exam need only select the correct protocol from a menu, as opposed to selecting each setting individually. This greatly reduces the opportunity for error.

Dose Customization

Our CT scanners offer state of the art technology giving us the ability to intelligently customize the radiation dose according to a patient’s weight, age, history and the body part being scanned.  This is especially important when performing CT scans on children and patients who receive frequent scans as a part of their care.  The American College of Radiology has specific guidelines for radiation dose for the various types of CT scans we perform. Lake Health has achieved ACR accreditation for all of our scanners by performing below the dose levels set by the ACR.

For more information on radiation safety, go to radiologyinfo.org, a radiology resource for patients.