EU-Funded Horizon 2020
Real-time system to report anomalies involving staff in nucler medicine therapy units.
2023
About the project
Siren is an Italian consultancy project developed with IFO and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità.
Its goal is to design an IoT-based system for the voluntary reporting of abnormal events in Nuclear Medicine Therapy Units. The solution includes a mobile app and a wireless network of radiation detectors.
The app, designed for healthcare professionals, simplifies reporting and provides real-time dose monitoring.
Staff from various roles — physicians, physicists, technicians, and nurses — were involved throughout the design, testing, and evaluation process.
UX Design
UI Design
Research
User Research
In recent years, increasing attention has been given to preventing and learning from accidental radiation exposure in medical practices such as radiotherapy, interventional radiology, and nuclear medicine. Since nuclear medicine uses unsealed radioactive sources, incidents may expose patients, staff, or the environment to risk.
Safety and human factors are therefore essential. Each operator wears a personal dosimeter to monitor exposure:
Passive dosimeters provide monthly readings but lack immediate feedback.
Active dosimeters offer real-time data but are bulky and expensive.
Our partners aim to integrate passive and ambient dosimetry data to detect anomalies more effectively and to digitalize the current paper-based incident reporting process, making it simpler and traceable.
To understand user needs, we conducted 14 interviews with professionals from Nuclear Medicine Departments in Milan and Rome, selected based on their roles and availability.
Stakeholders included:
Head of Department (1)
Physicists (3)
Nurses (2) + Head Nurse (1)
Medical Radiology Technicians (2)
Diagnostic Nurses (2)
Health Care Workers (3)
These insights informed the design of a user-centered, IoT-based reporting system that improves safety awareness and workflow efficiency.
UI Design
Style Tile
Design process
