Sun 1 st Sep 2013
Session 1 / Talk 3
09:55 –10:15
HEAPHY 1 & 2
DIAGNOSTIC
Maria LAW
ABSTRACT
Maria LAW Vice-President for Asia Australasia, ISRRT. Consultant (MI & RT), Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, Professor
(Hon.), Tung Wah College, Hong Kong.
Among all activities of the ISRRT, education and training are highly regarded by the Board. With it’s limited resources, What can be done? In recent years the ISRRT focussed more on providing workshops for developing countries. However at the same time, some countries are calling for accreditation of education programme by ISRRT. With such background, the ISRRT is charged with the mission of looking into the matter. While a lot of researching has been dome on the way that standardization of training is done among different professions, a preliminary survey was also conducted among the Asian-
Australasian (A/A) countries in January 2013 to seek opinions and needs from this part of the world. In the survey, most A/A countries expressed such as a need and the results of the survey would be discussed.
As countries vary much in the practice of radiological technology, the setting of one standard is not without difficulties. While standardization of training would remain voluntary, it was felt that a mechanism must be provided for programs to be benchmarked against or invalidated at an internationally recognized standard. At the same time it should be cross referenced against the scope of practice in individual countries as well as the country-specific competency profiles of the profession.
Further discussion resulted in three ways to approach this issue: 1. the provision of a universal guideline, 2. documentation approval of training programme, and 3. accreditation of the training programme. The role and the possible method of each approach would be discussed.

Vice President (A/A), ISRRT
Consultant, Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital
President, Hong Kong College of Radiographers and Radiation Therapists
NZIMRT Conference 2013 29 Aug – 1 Sep, 2013, Hamilton, New Zealand

1. Introduction to ISRRT and its activities
2. Accreditation of radiography education globally?
3. Results of survey in early 2013
4. Preliminary recommendations
5. Discussion
6. Conclusion

– quality patient care,
– education and
– research...
in medical imaging and radiation therapy

Activities
1. Newsletter
– News and Views from around the World
2. Professional activities
– World Congress
– Radiography Day
– Collaboration with e.g.
WHO, IAEA, ICR, RSNA etc
– Radiation Protection
– Code of ethics
3. Education & research
ISRRT World Congress 2012,
Toronto, Canada

A global standard for
Radiography education?

A global standard for
Radiography education?
Within a country e.g. USA
What is everybody having for entry requirements?
• On-the-job training
• Certificate entry
• Dipoma entry
• Bacalaureate degree

A global standard for
Radiography education?
India
What are the different grades of practitioners?
• Technologists
• Technicians
• X-ray assistants
What do we require from each grade?

A global standard for
Radiography education?
Diversity of culture in the world
Which culture to base on?

Researching
• Director of Education looked into different radiography programs worldwide
• Also cross-referenced with similar professions e.g.
World Federation of
Occupational Therapists
• Questionnaire set to seek the views of countries

• Sought opinions from different countries through the respective Education Coordinators of the different regions
• One questionnaire done at the AACRT in
Chiangmai, Thailand in January 2013.

Hong
Kong
21 st Asian Australasian Conference of
Radiological Technologists
16-18 January 2013
Chiangmai, Thailand
Sri
Lanka
Korea
Bangladesh
Taiwan
Philippines
Japan
China
Korea
Taiwan Thailand
Hong
Kong
USA
Thailand UK
Malaysia
Japan
Nepal
Macau
Vietnam
Singapore
India
Bhutan
Mongolia r
Myanma
Australia

1. Should this be a single global profile or reflective of each country’s needs?
R: Global 3 Country Specific 15
2. If the latter, does your country have such a document?
R: No 7 Yes 8 Not understood 2
3. The document should be developed by the professional body. If you do not have such a document would you be willing to create one?
R: Yes 14 No 1 N/A 2

4. Accreditation or Approval can be Compulsory or
Voluntary, which would you prefer?
R: Voluntary Accred. 6 Compulsory Accred. 10
5. Site visits are expensive and could not be financially managed by the ISRRT. If we had a system in place would your institution or your government be willing to finance the site visit component?
R: No 7 yes 11

6. We are currently looking at models of radiography accreditation used in UK, USA, Canada, Australia, proposed model for Europe (EFRS), the current
ISRRT Guidelines and the World Federation of
Occupational Therapists which has an existing international model, do you have any others you
could recommend?
R: Yes 1 No 11 Not sure 2

A Committee meeting was held on 9 April 2013 to draft recommendations to the ISRRT
Board for discussion

Thailand
Australia
Hong Kong
Greece

The Document developed can be used …
• As a Benchmarking Tool
• As an Approval Document
• As an Accreditation document when used with Site visit tool and Visit itself (funded by requester)
24

1. The Accreditation or approval mechanism –
Voluntary
2. A method to determine quality or relevance but
NOT to confirm reciprocity between countries.

3. Responsibility of the program to produce the appropriate materials
4. Contain a comprehensive glossary of terms
5. The document should be out-come based.
Result-oriented

6. Focuses only on baccalaureate degree programs
7. Should be cross referenced against the ISRRT Role or Scope of Practice document and also country specific competency profiles

8. Expert advice to improve credibility to the document
9. A draft document should be sent out to all ISRRT members for their feedback

10. Implementation procedures and budgetting
11. Any accreditation system or approval system through ISRRT can only include a site visit if the institution pays

1. The Profession
2. The Education
3. The Student
4. The Resources
5. Work Integrated Learning (Clinical)
6. Management
7. Quality Assurance

• Scope of current project:
– Baccalaureate degree, what if countries do not offer degree programmes?
– Diagnostic radiography only, how can we benchmark those programmes that graduate radiographers in all disciplines (prevalent in Asia)
• Scope of practice:
– Do we want a global standard or a standard based on the scope of practice of an individual country?

• Is global accreditation of education programme the role of ISRRT?
• Many countries have been craving for such a standard document, both developed and developing countries
• If ISRRT does not take up this role, who else would do it?

12-15 June 2014

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