What are the requirements of the new Ohio Department of Health regulations relating to controlling patient radiation exposure?

Effective April 15, 2009, new ODH regulations require any facility who provides CT services to develop an ALARA program for CT patients. The program must be developed in cooperation with a radiation expert (medical physicist) and must be reviewed annually. That’s about all the regulation says; there is not much detail, and they have not released any regulatory guidance. At this time, NPC is assisting all our CT clients with developing and maintaining the ALARA program and performing annual reviews. As our CT facilities experience ODH inspections and we gather comments from inspectors, we will continue to relay what we’ve learned about ODH’s expectations to our clients.