Chair, Clinical Affairs and Quality Committee
RO-ILS: Radiation Oncology Incident Learning SystemTM was launched on June 19, 2014 by ASTRO and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). RO-ILS is a comprehensive solution for the documenting, tracing, analyzing and trending of patient safety related incidents in radiation oncology. ASTRO, in partnership with AAPM, developed RO-ILS – the only medical specialty society-sponsored incident learning system for radiation oncology.
The purpose of RO-ILS is to provide radiation oncology providers with an outlet to collect and analyze patient safety events. By using a secure Web interface, participants of RO-ILS will be able to track incidents and near-misses that occur in their institution in a secure and non-punitive environment, while submitting that data to a larger, national database. Not only will participants be able to receive benchmarked reports for their specific institution, they will also be able to learn about incident trends from the broader radiation oncology community. By aggregating and analyzing submitted data, the radiation oncology community will be able to reduce the risks and hazards associated with patient care and improve the patient experience.
At this year’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco, attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about this new incident learning system through a series of specific sessions.
The RO-ILS luncheon on Sunday, September 14 at 12:15 p.m. in Room 101 will feature two guest speakers: Carrie Bosela, RN, CPC, CPC-I and Donald Tyler, MD, MBA. Ms. Bosela is from the Society for Vascular Surgery Patient Safety Organization, and Dr. Tyler is from Wake Up Safe, the pediatric anesthesiology PSO. Both of them will speak about some of the important lessons that have been learned through medical specialty patient safety organizations.
On Wednesday, September 17 at 9:15 a.m. in the Esplanade Ballroom, the third Keynote Address with Sidney Dekker, PhD, will address the topic of human error, safety culture, and safety as it relates to medicine and radiation oncology. Dr. Dekker is currently a professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, where he runs the Safety Science Innovation Lab.
Also, join us on Wednesday at 10:45 a.m. in Room 134 for Education Session 412: Improving Patient Safety and Quality of Care with the Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System (RO-ILS). This session is for attendees who want to learn more about the specifics of RO-ILS and how it can facilitate safer and higher quality care within individual practices as well as in the field in general.
If you have any questions about RO-ILS, feel free to stop by the ASTRO Resource Center, located in the North Lower Lobby outside Hall D. ASTRO staff will be on hand to answer any questions you have about RO-ILS, or any other ASTRO products or services. The Resource Center will be open Saturday thru Tuesday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Wednesday from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
To participate or to learn more about RO-ILS, go to www.astro.org/ROILS. For more information about ASTRO’s 56th Annual Meeting, visit our Annual Meeting website.