Technologists, Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging, individual advocates and others, MITA integrated key stakeholder voice into its overall communications messages and activities.

EVALUATION OF SUCCESS

Media Outreach
MITA obtained significant media coverage and positioned itself as a national and inside the beltway industry voice on medical and CT radiation safety issues in 2010. Other media highlights include:
• 201,955,494 total impressions across trades, blogs and websites, wires, national print publications and broadcast.
• Secured coverage of MITA’s Radiation Therapy and Dose Check Initiatives included three New York Times placements, and ABC World News Tonight story, 10 wire stories, 29 blog and website pieces, including USA Today’s ‘On Deadline’ blog and NPR’s Health Blog, 53 placements in health trades such as Modern Healthcare, FDAWeek, and The New England Journal of Medicine, 5 articles in D.C. publications including CQ Healthbeat.

Capitol Hill Outreach
On Friday, February 26, the U.S. Congress held hearings to learn more about radiation dose exposure from radiology and radiation oncology procedures. MITA was one of six professional healthcare associations that were invited to present testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on February 26.

Executive director David Fisher testified on behalf of MITA and recommended the development of radiation dose reference levels. Fisher also pointed to MITA’s CT Dose Check Initiative, which was announced the day before on February 25.

Subcommittee members and staff were “pleasantly surprised that all organizations recommended changes that would add strength and uniformity to best-practice radiology and radiation oncology guidelines.”

Advocate Engagement
Additionally, Powell Tate recruited and secured patient advocate Suzanne Lindley to testify at the February congressional hearing on radiation, providing the balancing story of how repeated innovations in imaging have allowed her to live for 12 years with metastatic colon cancer.

We prepared Suzanne Lindley’s Congressional testimony, which was featured in CURE magazine and the summer issue of LIVESTRONG magazine. MITA member companies were thrilled with her story and with MITA’s representation at the hearing; a MITA member company CMO said, “Our entire company is greatly appreciative of all this communications team has done on behalf of our industry and in support of our collective goal of safe patient care. Ensuring our voice is heard in this process is critically important, and so we greatly value your hard work this week.”

Further, throughout the year, MITA engaged its allies and advocates with regular updates about the progress of its radiation safety initiatives to keep them fully and accurately informed.