New Choosing Wisely recommendations for techs

OTTAWA – Choosing Wisely Canada has released the list of five priority recommendations developed by the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists (CAMRT).

Medical Radiation Technologists (MRTs) are frontline healthcare providers that have direct contact with patients and face daily decisions in practice related to appropriateness.

CAMRT is proud to partner with Choosing Wisely Canada as one of the first allied health professional groups in their campaign.

The recommendations reflect five areas in which MRTs can make an impact in helping to reduce inappropriate or unnecessary testing or procedures in medical imaging and radiation therapy:

• Don’t image a patient without a relevant clinical history and a complete requisition in order to prevent unnecessary or redundant studies.
• Don’t perform medical imaging/radiation therapy procedures before assessing patient preparedness in order to prevent repeat procedures.
• Don’t perform medical imaging or radiation procedures prior to assessing the patient’s ability to tolerate the procedure in order to prevent repeat or poor quality studies.
• Don’t perform medical imaging or radiation therapy without using appropriate and/or available radiation dose reduction strategies and technologies.
• Don’t start peripheral venous lines when an appropriate central access is available.

The full recommendations, with discussion and references can be found on the Choosing Wisely Canada website at: https://choosingwiselycanada.org/medical-radiation-technology/

The CAMRT recommendations were established by the Choosing Wisely Core Committee, representing all four MRT disciplines: radiological technology, nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance and radiation therapy.

This committee created and sent outlines for recommendations to key professional stakeholders and used a Delphi process to establish the top 5 recommendations.

Individual recommendation committees then worked on the recommendations to prepare them for publication, and all recommendations were reviewed again by the CAMRT committee, the Choosing Wisely Physician Committee, and finally by Choosing Wisely stakeholders, prior to this release.

About the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists
The CAMRT is the national professional association and certifying body for radiological, nuclear medicine and magnetic resonance imaging technologists and radiation therapists. As the authoritative national voice for medical radiation technology, the CAMRT works on behalf of its more than 12,000 members to address critical issues affecting all areas of their practice.