Several staffing models are used to determine the required medical physics staffing, including radiotherapy technologists, of radiation oncology departments. However, since Japanese facilities tend to be smaller in scale than foreign ones, those models might not apply to Japan. Therefore, in this study, we surveyed workloads in Japan to estimate the optimal medical physics staffing in external beam radiotherapy. A total of 837 facilities were surveyed to collect information regarding radiotherapy techniques and medical physics specialists (RTMPs). The survey covered facility information, staffing, patient volume, equipment volume, workload and quality assurance (QA) status. Full-time equivalent (FTE) factors were estimated from the workload and compared with several models. Responses were received from 579 facilities (69.2%). The median annual patient volume was 369 at designated cancer care hospitals (DCCHs) and 252 across all facilities. In addition, the median FTE of RTMPs was 4.6 at DCCHs and 3.0 at all sites, and the average QA implementation rate for radiotherapy equipment was 69.4%. Furthermore, advanced treatment technologies have increased workloads, particularly in computed tomography simulations and treatment planning tasks. Compared to published models, larger facilities (over 500 annual patients) had a shortage of medical physics staff. In very small facilities (about 140 annual patients), the medical physics staffing requirement was estimated to be 0.5 FTE, implying that employing a full-time medical physicist would be inefficient. However, ensuring the quality of radiotherapy is an important issue, given the limited number of RTMPs. Our study provides insights into optimizing staffing and resource allocation in radiotherapy departments.

中文翻译：

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日本外照射放射治疗医学物理工作量全国调查

多种人员配置模型用于确定放射肿瘤科所需的医学物理人员配置，包括放射治疗技术人员。然而，由于日本设施的规模往往小于外国设施，因此这些模型可能不适用于日本。因此，在本研究中，我们调查了日本的工作量，以估计外束放射治疗中的最佳医学物理人员配置。总共对 837 个设施进行了调查，以收集有关放射治疗技术和医学物理专家 (RTMP) 的信息。调查涵盖设施信息、人员配置、患者数量、设备数量、工作量和质量保证 (QA) 状态。根据工作量估算全职当量 (FTE) 因素，并与多个模型进行比较。收到了 579 家机构 (69.2%) 的答复。指定癌症护理医院 (DCCH) 的年患者人数中位数为 369 人，所有设施的年患者人数中位数为 252 人。此外，DCCH 的 RTMP 中位 FTE 为 4.6，所有站点的 RTMP 中位 FTE 为 3.0，放射治疗设备的平均 QA 实施率为 69.4%。此外，先进的治疗技术增加了工作量，特别是在计算机断层扫描模拟和治疗计划任务中。与已发布的模型相比，较大的设施（每年超过 500 名患者）缺乏医学物理人员。在非常小的设施中（每年约 140 名患者），医学物理学人员配置需求估计为 0.5 FTE，这意味着雇用全职医学物理学家效率低下。然而，鉴于 RTMP 数量有限，确保放疗质量是一个重要问题。我们的研究为优化放射治疗科的人员配置和资源分配提供了见解。