Distinguished Merit Award: Use of Power BI in radiation protection

Luc Chartrand

For the use of Power BI to create an innovative and advanced approach to radiation protection management. 

Dose management for a project presented challenges resulting from a condensed work schedule, lower action levels, and a limited number of qualified staff to perform the work while also completing other unrelated tasks. Traditional methods of data management used by the Radiation Protection department proved insufficient for the project.

When a more comprehensive and advanced method for tracking worker dose was requested, the nominee proposed using Power BI. This data visualization software offers an advanced reporting format which he configured to track all workers against their assigned Dose Control Points (DCPs) and CRL’s Action Levels by incorporation of data from at least two different databases.

Altogether, the reports developed by the nominee offer a novel and extremely efficient use of data that has greatly improved management of work from a Radiation Protection perspective. The combination of reports into a Health Physics or Radiation Protection dashboard brings the department in line with the sophisticated data management techniques of departments such as the Project Management Office.