What concept in this chapter are illustrated in this case? What ethical issues are raised by radiation technology?
The concept that illustrated in this case is accountability. Accountability can be define as the responsibility to someone or for some activity. In this case hospital need to find the mechanism to identify the responsible parties for the radiation therapy kills.
The research of New York City hospitals found that the key of this problem cause by the combination of the malfunctions and user error that cause the patient were exposed to excessive dosages of radiation in his body. One of the ethical issues that raised by radiation technology is machine malfunction. Machine malfunction happens when technician was coding certain code of threating their patient, the machine was doing the other things. Moreover, human error is one of the ethical issue that raised by radiation technology.
The technician had failed to notice error massage on the machine screen indicate that there is an error regards on the radiation therapy treatment. Moreover, human error also is one of the ethical issues. This is because when technician wrongly setting the machine, it will effect the patients health. For example, as a results of the careless of the technician, Mr. Jerome-Parks receives an overdose radiation that make him experiences deafness and near-blindness, ulcers in his mouth and throat, persistent nausea, and severe pain. This will make the patient suffer because of the carelessness of the staff who in charge the machine.
What management, organization, and technology factors were responsible for the problems detailed in this case?
Management need to responsible for the recruitment of their staff. In this case, they hired an inexperience technician that not very familiar with the machine. Furthermore, they need to responsible for the faulty of the machine. This is because, in the case of Jerome-Parks, they use new machine that are more complex to used by the user that cause problem to their patient.
For the organization, they are responsible for the human error that made by their technician. When they know that their technician is lack of knowledge about the machine, the organization need to send them to go to training. For the technology, computer error and the faulty of machine is the cause of the radiation happens. Even though there is no software program is perfect, software programmer need to produce the software that low probability error as low as possible. Management, organization and technology play an important part to ensure the therapy can be done effectively.
To ensure the management play their role effectively, they need to develop information policies to make sure their staff informed to all of their patient about the information that patient need to know such as the strength of the beam of their new linear accelerator known as multi-leaf collimator. For the technology effectiveness, the software programmer need to develop software to profile individuals. This means that each of the patient have their own record of cancer therapy in the machine.
When the machine have the record, it is easier for the technician to code the strength of the beam according to the level of the patient’s cancer.
Do you feel that any of the groups involved with this issue (hospital administrators, technicians, medical equipment and software manufacturers) should accept the majority of the blame for these incidents? Why or why not?
The group involved with this issue (hospital administrators, technicians, medical equipment and software manufacturers) must accept the majority of the blame for these accident.
This is because most of the cause of radiation therapy kills are made by them. Hospital administrator was responsible for not send their staff such as technician to the training. When they not do this thing, their staff will lack of knowledge to handle the machine. The example of lack of knowledge for technician can be seen in the case study where the technician had failed to notice error messages in their screens indicate that there is something goes wrong happens on the machine during each of the 27 sessions of the therapy.
The technician also wrongly code the machine that made an error for the machine function. Moreover, software manufacturer also should be blame for these accidents. This is because they produce the software and machine that too complex to use by the staff of hospitals. When they produce a software, they need to teach the buyer on how to use the software. The issues arise when the manufacturer not give the proper instruction to use the software and cause the error when operating it.
How would a central reporting agency that gathered data on radiation-related accidents help reduce the number of radiation therapy errors in the future?
Central reporting agency can play an important role to ensure that the radiation therapy kills can be reduce in the future. The report from them can be used by the hospitals and the manufacturer to reduce the number of kills on radiation therapy. This is because, not all of the parties involved can diagnose their problem or failure effectively. The parties may wrongly diagnose their problem or failure that will lead to produce wrong solutions.
When the central reporting agency help them on gathering a data about the problem happens, this will make an easier for the parties to come out with the solution and mostly can produce a good and right solution for the problem. When the parties give right solution for the problem, they will reduce the accidents regards on the radiation therapy kills. For example, the central reporting agency found that the main cause of these problem happen because of the technician errors. the central reporting agency found that the technician lack of skills to handle the machine.
When hospital involved know about this, they will do some action to make this thing right. They will send their technician to the training to improve their knowledge. On the other hand, in future, if they want to hire a new technician, they will find a suitable and knowledgeable person to be their technician. Or the last option is they fired the technician that made a mistake that make their patient suffer because of the radiation.
If you were in charge of designing electronic software for a linear accelerator, what are some features you would include? Are there any features you would avoid?
If I were one of the software designer for the linear accelerator, there is some feature that I need to include. Firstly, create safeguard that control the amount of the radiation that patient receive. When there is a computer or machine error that lead the machine to release over high beam that usual, this type of security will prevent it by appear a pop-out box that asking the technician whether they want to continue to give over high beam of ray to the patient or not.
As long as the technician not agree by clicking the agree button, the machine will not operate. Moreover, I will create the software that up to date and friendly user to be used by the user. Friendly user means that the software will be easy to be learn by the user especially for the beginner user and only include an important button for the machine. If the manufacture produce a complex software and put a lot of button that difficult for the user to use, they tends to wrongly use the machine especially for new staff in the hospitals.
