Quality & Safety

The mission of the International Society of Radiology (ISR) is “…to facilitate the global endeavors of the … member organisations to improve patient care and population health through medical imaging”. To this end the ISRQSA has been established. It consists of continental, regional and national quality and safety campaigns, which are independent professional organisations lead primarily by radiologists and supported by their regional societies of radiology. Most of them are also multi-stakeholder organisations, having on board Medical Physicists and Radiographers and it is anticipated that this model would be a necessary and valuable element for new organisational involvement in the ISRQSA.

The ISRQSA is responsible for the Society’s quality and safety agenda, including functioning as convener of and facilitator for continental, regional and national radiation protection and quality and safety. The ISRQSA works in collaboration with other relevant organisations in the domain of safety and quality, including the IAEA, WHO, IRPA and ICRP and similar international societies and organisations as well as global safety campaigns. For example, through the ISRQSA, the ISR collaborates with the WHO and the IAEA towards improving radiation protection in low-and middle-income countries. The focal areas of this collaboration are reflected in the ISR-WHO work plan for 2022-2024.

The overarching objective for the ISRQSA in the area of radiation safety is to establish a strategic plan for global efforts related to quality and safety, which reflect the input of the campaigns. The specific goals of the ISRQSA will embrace contributions towards justification and optimisation, education, equipment performance, regulatory guidance, effective communication, as well as research related to radiation protection in medical imaging.

As a first step a survey of existing campaign portfolios has been carried out. Specifics of individual campaigns related to mission, geographic representation, leadership, strategic plan, business model, relationship to health authorities, and communication strategies have been gathered. Additional steps consist of identification of current campaign needs, and a resource repository, which can serve for exchanges between existing and developing campaigns.

Further activities of the ISRQSA include:

• proposing actions to ISR on the basis of the overarching objective of the alliance,
• representing ISR with IAEA, WHO, ICRP, IOMP, IRPA, ISRRT, WFPI and WFUMB according to requests received and relevant activities,
• proposing a contribution to the ISR educational and scientific programmes focused on quality and safety issues,
• proposing actitivies to implement the ISRQSA Call for Action
• providing relevant material for the ISR website

Members of the ISRQSA

• AFROSAFE RAD-EN
• AFROSAFE RAD-FR
• Arab Safe
• AsiaSafe
• Canada Safe Imaging
• EuroSafe Imaging
• Image Gently
• Image Wisely
• Japan Safe
• LATINSAFE

Regular updates and news will be published in this section.