ABC news reported on January 25 that there has been several cases where patients have been exposed to higher than required level of radiation and in some cases causing death.

THT did an article here few months back pointing out the issues and also raising questions if GE should have done something about it.  That time GE came out with an statement that there was nothing wrong with the machines.

Medical radiations are used for diagnostic and treatment purposes.  In 2009, Americans has about 72 million CT scans done.  Some patients, according to ABC News have been exposed to 20 times more radiation than many others while going for same treatment in the same facility.

Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman of UCSF siad that, ” the problem is we do not have a good sense of what’s going on [in hospitals].  We don’t have the standards that say this is allowable, this is not allowable.  This is an area that really lacks close oversight.”

This observation by Dr. Smith-Bindman is aligned with other findings that there are about 1 million injuries and about 88 thousand deaths every year in the hospitals due to avoidable reasons.  These can be reduce, if not eliminated, by implementing and managing robust process.

This however does not leave device manufacturer off the hook.  Note that GE takes a pride in listening to VOC, walking through operational process, etc as part of its claimed Design for Six Sigm (DFSS) methods use in product developments.

Any person with basic intelligence would have known the risk of over radiation and put a risk mitigation strategy.

So why did GE not have a Safety mechanism?  Is it because they could not measure? or they do not have proper controls in the machines? or they are hiding some fault in the machine, or it is pure lack of basic respect for human life that could get impacted.

Did Six Sigma Help GE?  Or did GE Failed Six Sigma in this case?

It would have been not that difficult to put a warning signs, shut offs etc. types of triggers based on the level of radiation. Or may be it could have required second level of authorization.

We would never know!