Do We Need a National Incident Reporting System for Medical Imaging?

The essential role of an incident reporting system as a tool to improve safety and reliability has been described in high-risk industries such as aviation and nuclear power, with anesthesia being the first medical specialty to successfully integrate incident reporting into a comprehensive quality improvement strategy. Establishing an incident reporting system for medical imaging that effectively captures system errors and drives improvement in the delivery of imaging services is a key component of developing and evaluating national quality improvement initiatives in radiology. Such a national incident reporting system would be most effective if implemented as one piece of a comprehensive quality improvement strategy designed to enhance knowledge about safety, identify and learn from errors, raise standards and expectations for improvement, and create safer systems through implementation of safe practices. The potential benefits of a national incident reporting system for medical imaging include reduced morbidity and mortality, improved patient and referring physician satisfaction, reduced health care expenses and medical liability costs, and improved radiologist satisfaction. The purposes of this article are to highlight the positive impact of external reporting systems, discuss how similar advancements in quality and safety can be achieved with an incident reporting system for medical imaging in the United States, and describe current efforts within the imaging community toward achieving this goal.     

Do Exercise Walkers Need Special Walking Shoes?

The emergence of exercise walking as a popular fitness activity has spurred sales of shoes designed and marketed specifically for walking. Consumers may find comfort and stability in these shoes—but certain other shoes may work just as well.     

Does aerobic training improve mental stress tolerance in job situations?

AIM: Effects of aerobic fitness on cognitive performance (CP) in elderly persons have been investigated with contradictory RESULTS: However, these effects have not been explored in occupationally active young and healthy subjects yet. Therefore we studied the effects of an aerobic training on CP during mental stress and in low demanding situations. METHODS: Twenty-seven healthy volunteer students performed a maximal bicycle exercise test and 2 computerized psychological examinations at the begin and the end of a 3 month period of individualized aerobic training. The psychological tests were the 'Determinations-test' (DT), which is a multi-task stress test, and the 'Vigilance test' (VT), representing a low demanding situation. According to the outcome of the aerobic training 2 groups were formed: those with moderate and those with good training effects. RESULTS: Results showed no significant differences between the 2 groups over the training period (5 parameters at DT and 4 at VT were n.s., 1 result at VT with p<0.05 was interpreted as a regression to the mean). CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that neither CP at high stress nor vigilance during low demanding periods can be influenced by an improvement of aerobic fitness in occupationally active young and healthy persons.