IAEA Releases a New Dose Management System (DMS)

The Dose Management System (DMS) for African Member States has been released by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The DMS is a software developed under the IAEA Technical Cooperation Project RAF9057: "Strengthening National Capabilities on Occupational Radiation Protection in compliance with Requirements of the New International Basic Safety Standards" with the aim to assist Member States in enhancing the monitoring capability of occupationally exposed workers.

Assessment and recording of the occupational exposure of workers is a key requirement in the IAEA Safety Standards GSR Part 3. In the recent years, with the support of the IAEA, the infrastructure for occupational radiation protection in the IAEA Member States has been strengthened and many Member States have established their dosimetry service laboratories for the monitoring of occupational exposure.

There is a strong demand from Member States to introduce a DMS to effectively manage the monitoring results in the dosimetry service laboratories and to use the data for radiation protection purposes, such as dose tracking and radiation protection optimization assessment.

The purpose of development of the DMS is to provide Member States with a functioning software to manage information required by a dosimetry service, including the collection, storage, evaluation and reporting of data and furthermore to assist Member States with the implementation of the IAEA Safety Standards. DMS has been developed based on the web-based Dose Management System which is being operated by the Individual Monitoring Service Laboratory of the IAEA, taking into consideration the requirements of IAEA Member States in Africa.

The DMS will provide the dosimetry service laboratories with a tool for the management of dose information on both, external and internal exposure of occupationally exposed workers. The DMS has its functions of:

• entering and updating employment data;
• registering occupationally exposed workers;
• maintaining and analyzing doses resulting from internal and/or external exposure; and,
• producing reports and correlating results.

In order to use the IAEA Dose Management System (DMS), the respective organizations in Member States that host a dosimetry service laboratory have to accept the DMS Terms and Conditions and submit the acceptance form to the IAEA through an official channel.

Special thanks go to the Member States in the African region who supported the testing of the software during its development stage.