Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Radiology imaging: Beauty, in the eye of the beholder or radiologist?

Peer review is widely accepted as a reliable method to consistently deliver excellence. However, many believe technology has swept away the peer review process for many professions in medicine including radiology.

In a presentation at the 2008 SIIM conference, Dr. Paul Nagy, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said he considered PACS to be a great system for creating a quality assurance program. This would provide radiology departments a quantitative evaluation of image quality and, in this particular incidence, radiological technologists would be placed under the spotlight.

"Peer review is a powerful motivator that we do not utilize enough," says Nagy. In today's radiology practices most track the level of image quality indirectly by monitoring the RT's rework or better yet the radiologists' complaints. Though useful in trying to minimize errors, voluntary incident reporting does not help raise the culture of quality, he adds.

source: Medicexhange

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