Radiation Protection and Compliance: How Intuitus DACS Automates ONR Dose Reporting

Faced with the evolving requirements of the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), Belgian radiology departments must adapt. The recent reform of dose collection procedures for CT scanners has significantly increased the administrative burden on hospitals. This is an overview of the solution developed by Intuitus to transform a regulatory constraint into a simple formality.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr Denis Tack, a radiologist at EpiCURA Hospital Centre, and Xavier de Spiegeleire, who initiated the new DACS module project as a Medical Specialist at Telemis.

The Context: Increased Complexity for Hospitals

ONR, which guarantees the monitoring of the population's radiation exposure, requires hospitals to periodically submit dose reports. While this procedure is standard, 2024 marked a turning point with the introduction of new requirements for CT examinations.

The agency is no longer satisfied with a global dose per examination; it now requires fine granularity, differentiating between irradiation stages (topograms, phases with or without contrast, etc.). Added to this is the obligation to adhere to a strict nomenclature and complex formatting for submission on their automated platform.

For Dr Tack, the shift to Intuitus modernises dosimetric monitoring and simultaneously addresses international compliance needs, such as EpiCURA hospital's accreditation:

“Our previous DACS was rudimentary and unlikely to evolve. Intuitus allowed us to meet a requirement of our Accreditation (CANADA), namely, being able to track repetitions and rejections of radiographic images.”

The Technological Response: The ONR Module of Intuitus DACS

Anticipating these changes, the Intuitus teams developed a specific module integrated into the DACS (Dose Archiving and Communication System) solution. This project is the result of close collaboration with field users.

“All the adaptations and requests we made to the team have been developed,” emphasises Dr Tack, illustrating the agility of the solution in meeting the specific needs of radiology departments.

Technical Challenges Overcome

The strength of the module lies in its ability to standardise heterogeneous data. As Xavier de Spiegeleire explains, each scanner manufacturer has its own specificities. The Intuitus engine manages to extract the raw data, map it according to ONR nomenclature, and handle exceptions (such as null values for patient size, or the absence of protocol acquisition) that would otherwise cause submission to fail.

Time Savings and Increased Safety

The primary advantage is automation. But beyond the administrative time saving (which can represent up to two days of manual work per scanner), the tool becomes a major lever for clinical optimisation.

Dr Tack explains how this precision has allowed his department to alleviate regulatory procedures: “The DACS allows us to monitor our CT radiation level in real time and compare it to the ONR reference levels. This monitoring enabled us to demonstrate that all our radiation levels were below the national P50, which led us to avoid the annual protocol optimisation steps required by ONR. You don't optimise a protocol that is already optimised!”

Patient Safety at the Heart of the System

The tool does more than just report figures; it helps detect practice anomalies.

“Intuitus allowed us to identify occasionally excessive doses and look for underlying errors. One of these even led us to publish a radiation incident to make its causes known to the international community. The traceability offered confirms our quality choices.”

A Successful and Sustainable Deployment

To date, approximately 80% of sites equipped with DACS (including CHwapi and EpiCURA) have successfully submitted their studies via this module. The engine's architecture was designed to be scalable. While ONR campaigns will shift their focus in 2026 (conventional radiology, mammography, etc.), the module is already prepared to adapt.

By way of conclusion, Dr Tack is categorical for his colleagues who are still hesitant: “It is essential to have such a tool if you want to meet the requirements of controlling or accrediting bodies.”

In summary, Intuitus DACS does not merely provide interactive graphs; it positions itself as an essential compliance partner, freeing up medical teams to concentrate on their core business: patient care.