While the prime concern in nuclear medicine is radiation exposure, another common concern is radiopharmaceutical misadministration. One of the most crucial components of a technologist’s job is to ensure the administration of the correct radiopharmaceutical and dose to the correct patient. The role of Risk Management (RM) has helped reduce this problem.
Misadministration of a radiopharmaceutical to the wrong patient or vice versa, can result in an adverse drug event (ADE) which is defined as an injury resulting from medical intervention related to a drug. Furthermore, the NRC places more rigorous rules on technologists; even if the correct radiopharmaceutical is administered. It is considered an ADE if exposure falls 0.05 Sv (5 rem) effective
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The technologist must conscientiously focus all of their attention toward radiopharmaceutical preparation and verification while ignoring any outside distractions as much as possible to prevent mistakes. For nuclear medicine RM has put many procedures in place to reduce accidental misadministration. The most common methods are judiciously reviewing the patients order and medical records associated with the procedure, carefully identifying the patient, reading and verifying all labels, performing pre assay and post assay measurements, and documenting all information. Even though the incidence of misadministration is small, it is vital for all technologists to actively work toward reducing distractions while radiopharmaceuticals are being prepared and reviewed in the hot lab. It is equally important for the technologist in the hot lab to focus their attention and use all resources available ensuring the right patient is getting the right radiopharmaceutical at the correct dose. When a concern is identified, it should immediately be reported to RM for further evaluation. This means that RM is a role that all nuclear technologists must actively participate in to protect their patients from accidental