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Basics of a Radiology Image QA ProgramWhen planning a radiology image QA program in your radiology department, you must make sure to provide the imaging technologists with appropriate tools to perform the work. This means installing appropriate video cards and monitors that can be calibrated and measured to the DICOM grayscale standard. 2 megapixel monitors that are 21 inches in size are sufficient enough to show diagnostic quality images for MRI, CT, Ultrasound and other modalities with the exception of general x-ray iamges and mammography images. Monitors such as the Planar px212 are sufficient and affordable enough to purchase and sprinkle throughout each area. For general x-ray, you will want to purchase at least one 3 megapixel monitor to place in a central location for image evaluation activities. For mammography, the FDA requires a five megapixel monitor for diagnostic viewing. Considering there are numerous requirements for quality assurance in mammography that will be excluded from discussion here. As a PACS Administrator, recommend to your leadership team that an image QA program should be set up to allow all of the technologists to see images similar to the way a radiologist will see those images. This will help to ensure that by the time the images are available for the radiologist to read, they will have been viewed as they will appear to the radiologist. Also, mention to your leadership team that there are various solutions out there that will allow you to build a quality program which ultimately helps to reduce turnaround time.
For more information on this topic please see an article that I wrote for AuntMinnie.com which can be found at this link.
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