IAC Report

Tamara A. Sloper

Quality improvement—defined as a program for the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service, or facility to ensure that standards of quality are being met and improved upon—is an essential aspect of the accreditation program for each of the IAC divisions. Quality improvement activities in nuclear medicine focus on patient safety, the accuracy of the results, the patient’s experience, and the efficiency of processes across all aspects of the practice.

For IAC Nuclear/PET accreditation, facilities must integrate a quality improvement program inclusive of at least 1 measure annually from each of the following 3 areas: administrative quality, technical quality, and physician performance, also called interpretive quality.

As published within the “Quality Improvement Measures Guidelines” section of The IAC Standards and Guidelines for Nuclear/PET Accreditation: “Annual participation in a relevant inter-facility patient simulator exercise (phantom program) may be used to fulfill the annual [quality improvement] requirement for both the technical and physician performance measurements” (sections 2.1.2C and 2.1.3C). Facilities that choose to participate in interfacility comparison testing or a patient simulator program meet both the technical and the physician performance requirements for that year.

The SNMMI Quality Assurance Patient Simulator (phantom) Program offers a unique, unknown-patient simulator that demonstrates actual clinical problems in technique and diagnosis found in nuclear medicine practice. The simulator provides feedback on a facility’s ability to acquire, process, and interpret nuclear medicine images. Use of the simulator is voluntary, and it is separately available for purchase through the SNMMI.

Understanding that quality improvement is a new concept for most technologists and that their time is limited, the IAC offers in-depth resources to help applicant facilities comply with the quality improvement measures guidelines. Within the “Helpful Resources” section of the IAC Nuclear/PET Web site (www.intersocietal.org/nuclear/seeking/sample_qualitycontrol.htm), a section devoted to quality improvement provides a sample quality improvement plan and a template for recording the minutes of quality improvement meetings. Facilities are encouraged to customize and utilize these documents to integrate quality improvement into their operations, ultimately ensuring that their examination results are valid and reliable.