Each year, the Connecticut Hospital Association awards health care professionals who have demonstrated outstanding commitment in their organizations and communities. (Click
here to see the full list of awardees, and for more information on the program.)
DOTmed News chose to single out one of these "health care heroes" -- a individual who works in diagnostic imaging.
Jenifer Siegelman, MD, MPH
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CT Scan Section Chief, Diagnostic Imaging Department
The William W. Backus Hospital
Nominated by Heather Beausoleil
Healthcare is changing. New technologies, exciting discoveries, and breakthroughs in research get a lot of attention. But behind all meaningful changes are people-dedicated professionals who use their training, their intellect, and their commitment to make conditions better for patients.
One such champion of change is Jenifer Siegelman, MD, MPH, CT Scan Section Chief of Backus Hospital's Diagnostic Imaging Department. A steward of safety, Jenifer has taken the lead at Backus Hospital to help ensure that patients scheduled for CT scans get the right test and the right dose for the right reason. Working with the entire Diagnostic Imaging team, Jenifer developed a protocol to tailor each patient's test to his or her specific healthcare need, helping to reduce radiation exposure.
"We have set into motion a radiation dose optimization process using international benchmarks for exposure levels, with monitoring and audit of size- and age-specific exposure and radiation dose levels," she said.
Jenifer and her colleagues view weekly snapshots and determine whether there is any variability from protocol, and if so, determine the problem's source, mitigate it, report findings, and measure improvement. This is all done with the help of dose monitoring software called eXposure™ by Radimetrics, which in addition to tracking radiation exposure offers dashboard reporting and other features.
"Dr. Siegelman's initiative is remarkable," said Peter Shea, MD, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Backus Hospital. "She came to us and told us she wanted to develop this radiation optimization program. This is a prime example of how she's blended her clinical and public health backgrounds to establish an improvement program."
Jenifer leads a unified and talented team, and continually educates them about the complexities involved in performing optimal medical scans, reducing radiation exposure, assisting and educating providers to choose imaging tests wisely, and offering the best possible radiology care for the community. In the past year, she has performed extensive research on radiation dose optimization. Her work has been published in a number of publications, including an upcoming edition of the peer-reviewed publication Journal of the American College of Radiology.
An advocate of patient safety, Jenifer works to ensure that community hospitals have open lines of communication with industry leaders to train staff on best practices and provide the best care possible.
"We expect exceptional performance from each other at every level and live the motto, 'First, do no harm,'" said Jenifer. "Few facilities in the country are developing patient care algorithms to optimize radiation exposure like we are, we're ahead of the curve, we own it and we're sustaining it."
