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Publication Type: Signal
Single or Multiple Incident: Multiple
Date: 2/26/2010 12:00:00 AM
Diagnostic imaging is essential for the diagnosis and treatment of many patients. This Signal concerns patient safety incidents that have resulted from a delay in the communication of neurosurgery imaging between care centres. Prompt and accurate image interpretation is needed for surgery following trauma (such as head injury) or other urgent conditions such as tumours or haemorrhages in the brain or spinal cord. Timely diagnosis is crucial and expert opinion may be needed to properly treat neurosurgical patients. One patient safety incident required an urgent opinion from a neurosurgeon regarding a patient with a large brain heammorhage. Several attempts had been made to access the digital CT scans at another centre, but the physician was unable to access any of the patient's brain images. This delay in making decisions regarding appropriate management of the patient resulted in a potentially life-threatening condition. Please review the full alert for more information.


Environment / Equipment
  1. Implementation of a National Image Rating System
  2. Implementation of a National Image Rating System

Transferring neurosurgery patient images