MODULE 10: Ensuring Quality in PACS Flashcards
In Quality Aspect, What does Radiology have?
Radiology has both a people-centered & a product-centered quality.
Has always been a part of health care, whether as a
service or product.
Quality
The ultimate focus in health care
improve patient care & provide a high-quality service
JCAHO/ TJC
Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations/ The Joint Commission
What term does the TJC currently use instead of quality?
Continuous Quality Improvement or
Total Quality Management
A plan for the systematic observation & assessment of the different aspects of a project, service, or facility to make certain that standards of quality are being met.
Quality Assurance
QA Activities are focused around?
People and Service
Most QA activities will produce
_______________ that can be
analyzed.
Quantitative Data
Defined as a comprehensive set
of activities designed to monitor & maintain systems that produce a product.
Quality Control
QC measures are instituted to ensure
that radiologic procedures are: (papp)
✓ performed safely
✓ appropriate for the patient
✓ performed efficiently
✓ produce a high-quality image
are required by law to
maintain the license for the room or department.
QC measures
3 MAJOR CATEGORIES OF QC TESTS
- Acceptance Testing
- Routine Maintenance
- Error Testing
- Performed before newly installed or majorly repaired
equipment can be accepted by the department. - Testing may be performed by a designated technologist, a radiation physicist, or by
service personnel employed by the hospital. - Used to determine whether the equipment is performing within the vendor’s specifications & as
promised.
Acceptance Testing
- Performed to ensure that the equipment is performing as expected.
- Can catch problems before they become
radiographically apparent. - Testing may be performed by a designated
technologist, a radiation physicist, or by service personnel employed
Routine Maintenance
- When errors occur in equipment performance,
corrective action must occur. - Errors will be detected by poor equipment performance or poor quality outcomes.
- These corrections will generally be made by service
personnel employed by the vendor.
Error Testing
Focus more on the process rather than on the
people or the service.
Focuses on improving the process or system
within which the people function as team members rather than focusing on an individual’s work
CQI - Continuous Quality Improvement
True or False:
The CQI does not replace QA/QC programs.
True
The QA/QC programs focus on ________ a certain level of quality, not necessarily improving to a higher quality.
maintaining
very important in any QC activity & all paperwork must be kept up to date to make a valid performance measure
the most difficult part of the process & the easiest part
to not complete.
Documentation
QC ACTIVITIES
to be monitored in a PACS environment
includes:
- Display quality for both monitor & film
- Processing speed
- Network transfer speed
- Data integrity (Data from archive)
“Any facility using a digital image data management system must have documented policies & procedures for monitoring & evaluating the effective management, safety & proper performance of acquisition, digitization, compression, transmission, display, archiving & retrieval functions of the system. The QC program
should be designed to maximize the quality & accessibility of diagnostic information”
ACR Technical Standard for Digital Image Data Management
ACR suggests that all the quality tests must be carried out with this test pattern to ensure continuity of measurements
SMPTE - Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Test pattern
Another test pattern developed by the
________________________________________ is
also becoming more widely accepted for use in these QC tests.
AAPM TG18 - American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group 18
is often the weakest link in the digital imaging chain.
has a direct effect on the quality of the image that is presented to the radiologist for reading or to the referring physician for review.
Monitor
