Computerization aspects of the Health Physics' Radiation Control Program at Argonne National Laboratory

Greater public awareness of the potential hazards of ionizing radiation and the more stringent governmental compliance programs have made accountability of radioactive materials an item of increasingly major concern for all radionuclide users. For low-volume (radioisotopically) organizations, manual record keeping techniques may suffice without requiring significant work-hour allocations. When considering high-volume users, the workload contingent with manual inventory is usually excessive from an employee time-allocation standpoint. Therefore, various automation systems are employed, usually with the aid of an in-house or time-purchase computer system. The computer programs developed for these systems often do not allow for future modification without major rewriting. Therefore, to facilitate in program concept, modification, and implementation the Health Physics Section at Argonne National Laboratory chose to design and code its computer program(s) and has instituted a Radiation Administrative Program (RAP) as a major component of the Section's laboratory-wide radiation control program. Coded in ANSI PL/I, RAP provides both flexibility in present concept and allowance for future growth. It requires less than 300K words of computer memory and can be easily incorporated at other organizations with minimal modifications. The modular design provides run cost benefits and versatility of report generation and modification. Through the use of this type of information processing and retrieval system, one can manipulate large amounts of radionuclide data, providing control and identification, while still maintaining commitment of computer costs and employee time at a reasonable level. (author)