Gary Denham

Hunter New England Health | HNEPH · Department of Radiology

Human error always has and always will occur at times in the delivery of radiology services. Despite the inevitability of human error, they can be minimised when systems are in place to do so. An effective error reporting system must encourage the reporting and investigation of errors or ‘near misses’ to prevent adverse events for patients and the...

Laws exist in most states of Australia regarding mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse. In all Australian jurisdictions, the legislation stipulates various people or professions are mandated to report suspected cases of child abuse. In some states, medical imaging professionals are included in the groups of prescribed people mandated to repo...

Objectives Critical/urgent X‐ray findings are not always communicated in an appropriate time frame to ED physicians. The practice of radiographers alerting referrers to clinically significant image findings (verbally, via image flags or written comment) is noted internationally but risk assessment data is unavailable in the literature. A hybrid rad...

Introduction: The timely communication of clinically significant image appearances to Emergency Department (ED) referrers is necessary for optimum patient care. Australian reliance on verbal communication only is time-limited, open to misinterpretation and lacks transparency. A combined radiographer alert and comment model was designed to reliably...

Modern healthcare focuses on patient-centred care where patients' needs, beliefs, choices and preferences are valued and lead to better health outcomes. Children and young persons in out of home care (OOHC) require more health care services compared with children from similar social and economic backgrounds. Each state and territory government are...

Aim: Previous studies, some dating back several decades, have recommended that the use of plain abdominal radiography should be curbed, particularly with the growth of more accurate imaging modalities. However, evidence from referral data suggests that plain abdominal radiography continues to be a commonly requested examination. The aim of this re...

Objectives: The Australian Society of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy (ASMIRT) is undertaking a project to assist in the development and assessment for radiographer commenting within Australia. The opinions of radiographers was sought on the current enablers and barriers in Australia regarding radiographer commenting. Methods: Ethics approval...

When adverse radiation events occur in the medical radiation science profession in Australia they are reported to the relevant state or territory authority. The details and cause of the incident are forwarded to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) to be included in the Australian Radiation Incident Register (ARIR...

Background: There is a common perception that erect and supine abdomen radiography is over-requested in the emergency department. Studies have shown that erect abdominal views are generally unhelpful. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether supine and erect plain abdominal radiography requested in the emergency department at a r...

"You've made a mistake!” These words from a colleague send chills through your body. You have made an error that results in adverse events for two patients. Your mind scrambles for the details of what happened. Possible repercussions of the incident are already being formed by your imagination. It is the moment that no medical radiation professiona...

Introduction: The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) collect reported incidents for inclusion in the Australian Radiation Incident Register (ARIR), a database of radiation incident reports that occur within Australia. While the information on previous radiation incidents is available, there is little information on...

When adverse radiation events occur in the medical radiation science profession in Australia they are reported to the relevant state or territory authority. The details and cause of the incident are forwarded to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) to be included in the Australian Radiation Incident Register. The...

Methods: All radiation incidents recorded on the ARIR as well as state and territory registers that occurred in nuclear medicine, radiation therapy and diagnostic radiography between 2003 and 2015 were analysed by a multidisciplinary team comprising of a nuclear medicine technologist, radiographer and radiation therapist. The nuclear medicine tech...

Since the publication of the Institute of Medicine report To Err Is Human in 1999 reducing the incidence of medical errors has become an international priority. Numerous studies from around the world have demonstrated that an unacceptably high number of preventable adverse incidents still occur. One well established method to reduce and prevent err...

Since the publication of the Institute of Medicine report To Err Is Human in 1999 reducing the incidence of medical errors has become an international priority. Numerous studies from around the world have demonstrated that an unacceptably high number of preventable adverse incidents still occur. One well established method to reduce and prevent err...

Introduction: International collaboration is recognized for enhancing the ability to approach complex problems from a variety of perspectives, increasing development of a wider range of research skills and techniques and improving publication and acceptance rates. The aim of this paper is to describe the current status of international collaboratio...

If medical radiation sciences is to evolve as an evidence based profession, we must increase research productivity and publication in our field. International collaboration is recognized for enhancing the ability to approach complex problems from a variety of perspectives, increasing development of a wider range of research skills and techniques, a...