Purpose or Case Report: It has become challenging for pediatric imaging centers to keep up with the various national requirements regarding quality of patient care and safety issued by the Joint Commission and others. The American College of Radiology’s Diagnostic Imaging Center of Excellence program provides an avenue for pediatric radiology departments to demonstrate their qualifications of personnel, policies and procedures, equipment specifications, quality assurance activities, patient safety, image quality and the quality of patient care.
Methods & Materials: The American College of Radiology developed the Diagnostic Imaging Center of Excellence award as a way to provide "comprehensive assessment of the medical imaging facility, including structure and outcomes". Award requirements are 1) Participation in the ACR’s Dose Index Registry (DIR), 2) Contribution to the General Radiology Improvement Database (GRID) and 3) Site visit by an ACR team. The DIR requires submitting CT dose information for benchmarking. GRID data include patient wait times, report turnaround times, digital radiography repeat rates, biopsy success rates and others. Facilities must meet requirements in categories such as radiation safety, medication management, quality management, and patient records.
Results: We achieved buy in from all stakeholders, including radiologists, physicists, management and staff. Information technology set up systems for data retrieval. We performed a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats) analysis: Our policies, marketing materials, quality data, job descriptions and meeting minutes demonstrated compliance but we also identified areas for improvement, such as availability of appropriateness criteria information for referring physicians. The ACR site visit team, consisting of a radiologic technologist, radiologist, and physicist, reviewed evidence of compliance and made suggestions that were implemented.
Conclusions: The Diagnostic Imaging Center of Excellence award was granted and has been used to distinguish the department as one dedicated to excellence in imaging with patient safety as a top priority. Participation in national registries allows benchmarking with other facilities and is a way to ensure appropriate metrics are in place. The process of reviewing each element of compliance required thorough review of services and expanded the quality program into new areas. Participation also ensured compliance with Joint Commission standards.