Program Information

Managing Treatment Planning Systems

J Chang

G Newman

J De Wyngaert

W Feng

J Chang¹*, G Newman²*, K DeWyngaert³*, W Feng⁴*, (1) NewYork Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Ctr, New York, NY,(2) Philips Medical Systems, Cleveland, OH, (3) NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY(4) NewYork Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY

TH-C-116-1 Thursday 10:30AM - 12:30PM Room: 116

The radiotherapy treatment planning system has evolved over the years into a very powerful but complex software tool. Most modern treatment planning systems employ advanced information technologies (e.g., network, client-server...) that allow multiple users to access patient data simultaneously and perform treatment plans from almost anywhere. Although these improvements have increased the efficiency of treatment planning process, they also pose serious challenges for medical physicists who are responsible for the data security and system management of the treatment planning system on the application level. In addition, the treatment planning system designed for clinical use is commonly used for research and education purposes, which put additional burden on system management.

In this symposium we will use existing commercial Windows- and Unix-based systems to illustrate effective techniques for managing modern treatment planning systems for routine clinical use and for research and education. Topics will include:

1.Introduction of information technologies: (a) client/server vs. centralized processing, (b) enterprise-level systems, (c) motivation to move to centralized processing and (d) what to consider if planning a move.

2.System management: (a) system manager, (b) user management, (c) privilege assignment, (d) scripting, (e) synchronize preferences, (f) database integrity, (g) backup and recovery, (h) plan locking, (i) anonymizing patient data, (j) policy and procedure, and (k) training.

3.Research and Education: (a) challenge facing, (b) typical research settings, (c) user privilege considerations, (d) patient data sharing, (e) backup and recovery, (f) protocol accreditation and submission and (g) protocol/template sharing.

Learning Objectives:
1.Be familiar with the information technologies used by modern treatment planning systems.
2.Understand the scope and challenges of managing modern treatment planning systems.
3.Understanding the different requirement for research and education use
4.Be able to implement some management techniques introduced in the symposium.


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