IAEA Releases Guide on Dose Management Systems

The IAEA has released comprehensive guidance on dose management systems - software tools that collect, monitor and analyse patient data on radiation doses. This new resource will help medical physicists around the world to better understand, set up and operate these systems to improve both the accuracy and quality of diagnostic care.

"Information presented on the content, data analysis and evaluation of these systems will help to advance quality assurance, patient safety and the optimization of medical imaging," said Virginia Tsapaki, IAEA medical physicist and the technical officer responsible for the publication. Since its release in September 2025, Dose Management Systems: From Setting up to Quality Assurance has been among the top eight most accessed IAEA publications of that month.

Dose management systems play a key role in gathering, tracking and evaluating patient-specific data obtained using imaging technologies such as computed tomography (CT), mammography, SPECT-CT, positron emission tomography-CT (PET-CT). In automating how this information is collected, archived, analysed and shared, these systems streamline workflows by reducing manual approaches and improving overall accuracy. Dose management systems are instrumental for ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements on patient radiation exposure monitoring, optimizing radiological procedures and assessing doses at the population level.

"Despite the growing importance of these systems within routine clinical practice, there has been little guidance on how medical physicists can best set up these systems and assess their accuracy," said May Adel-Wahab, Director of the IAEA Division of Human Health .

Differences in equipment from multiple manufacturers for example can result in interoperability issues. Dose management systems also rely heavily on accurate, standardized and consistent input data - adding to the difficulties of considering hardware and software compatibility, evaluating performance and developing operational system criteria.

"In addressing this critical gap, the IAEA has developed dedicated guidance which provides a standardized approach for health professionals to harness these systems safely and effectively," said Abdel-Wahab.

In providing comprehensive guidance on the implementation, operation and optimization of dose management systems, the IAEA's new publication covers:

• roles and responsibilities of clinical staff in a medical imaging department;
• metrics used in dose management systems;
• the importance of information systems in healthcare;
• how clinical workflows affect DMS operations;
• technical aspects - from software and hardware architecture to system functionalities - and setup processes;
• key requirements to efficiently operate and integrate dose management systems within clinical environments;
• quality assurance processes for acceptance, commissioning and setup; and
• practical challenges, including from software upgrades and the addition of new medical imaging modalities.

Through clinical scenarios, the publication also demonstrates the wide range of capabilities and real-world applications dose management systems can offer. Advances such as machine learning and artificial intelligence can further enhance these systems' potential in enhancing workflow efficiency, improving patient outcomes and ensuring both safety and regulatory compliance. Since high-quality data and continuous improvement are key for realizing this potential, the IAEA's guidance identifies several strategies to strengthen the functionality of dose management systems.

"The coming decade will see dose management systems becoming essential infrastructure in automating quality assurance, accelerating learning and strengthening protection for every patient as their use moves from retrospective reporting to proactive support on patient-centred decision-making," said Ioannis Tsalafoutas, a medical physicist at Hamad Medical Corporation, the IAEA's Rays of Hope Anchor Centre in Qatar, and one of the expert contributors to the publication.

The publication has been endorsed by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the Asia-Oceania Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics, the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics, the Federation of African Medical Physics Organisations, the International Organization for Medical Physics, the International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technologists, the Latin American Medical Physics Association and the South East Asian Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics.

Dose management systems and related topics will be discussed at the IAEA's International Symposium on Standards, Applications and Quality Assurance in Medical Radiation Dosimetry (IDOS 2026), to be held in Vienna, Austria, from 5 to 9 October 2026. Medical physicists, radiation metrologists and other researchers and scientists working in radiation dosimetry are invited to submit abstracts by 2 April 2026.