Providing top-class healthcare infrastructure is one of the priorities of modern-day hospitals in our country. The investment in state-of the-art equipment is only a start towards this goal. It is extremely essential to maintain the quality of high-end equipment procured to provide high quality healthcare. One of the difficult areas of maintaining this infrastructure is within the diagnostic radiology department. Radiation cannot be seen, heard or smelt. Hence, to check the quality of radiation producing equipment, intuitive methods of detection seldom fail. Checking the quality of image might give an indication of performance of radiation equipment, but can be often misleading. The quality of diagnostic radiation equipment directly affects the diagnostic image quality and unwanted exposure to staff. Poor diagnostic image quality can lead to faulty diagnosis.
Diagnostic radiology machines have been a great boon to the healthcare industry and numerous people have benefited from the useful information they provide. At the same time, these powerful machines need to be checked for their operation. Quality assurance (QA) programmes contribute in providing high-quality health care. The basic purpose of QA in diagnostic imaging is to improve diagnostic information content, reduce radiation exposure, reduce medical costs and improve departmental management.
QA programmes for diagnostic imaging include both quality control techniques and quality administration procedures. Quality control techniques are used to test the components of radiological system to verify that the equipment is operating satisfactorily. A quality administration procedure involves a management system wherein a check is implemented at each level of all the diagnostic imaging procedures to verify quality control techniques and implement a corrective action wherever required. QA programmes in diagnostic imaging can be generic as well as tailored for a particular segment, such as QA in paediatric radiology does not differ from general radiology besides that children are more sensitive to ionising radiation and QA is therefore even more stringent.
QA programmes for medical exposures includes measurements of the physical parameters of the radiation generators and imaging devices at the time of commissioning and periodically thereafter and verification of the appropriate physical and clinical factors used in patient diagnosis or treatment. QA practices are defined at the global level by many organisations such as the ‘International Electrotechnical Commission’ (IEC). Various research groups through their work have formulated QA protocols and recommended the suitable tools to perform QA routines. The regulatory requirements for these routines differ from one country to another. In India, the QA routines are regulated by Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). At an organisational level, different healthcare providers can implement intense QA routines sufficing the regulatory as well as organisation’s quality standards. The tools required for performing QA routines differ in terms of functionality, radiation detection principles, measurement accuracy and reproducibility.
Although QA routines are handled by qualified personnel, to cater to wide gamut of QA engineers and physicists, the ease of use of the QA tools is of utmost importance. The tools used should be optimised in such a way that minimum radiation exposures are required to perform a QA routine. Advanced tools reduce the number of radiation exposures required for QA routine and hence do not contribute to X-ray tube ageing. With the advances in technology, a complete traceability of measurements can be maintained.
The basic purpose of using the right tools and adopting best practices is to build a radiation safety culture which focusses on avoiding unwanted radiation exposure through use of radiation protection accessories, changing staff behaviour to avoid exposure to unwanted radiation and to control the radiation producing equipment as per the ALARA (As low as reasonably achievable) principle. There is a trend of outsourcing the QA tests within diagnostic radiology department. Although it works perfectly for many organisations, there are enough reasons to perform QA in-house. A simple analysis is shown in the table to depict the same.
| No QA Programmes in a hospital | Hospital with In-house QA Programmes |
| No procurement of QA equipment (savings) | Procurement of QA equipment (expenditure) |
| No Personnel time: Managing QA (savings) | Personnel time: Managing QA (expenditure) |
| Increased downtime of equipment (loss) | Minimum downtime of equipment (gain) |
| Patient inflow decreases (loss) | Patient inflow increases (gain) |
| Retakes increase ? Personnel time decreased (loss) | Retakes decrease ? Personnel time increased (gain) |
| Service expenditure increased (loss) | Service expenditure minimum (gain |
Our role in Indian market
In the socialistic view of providing the most advanced QA tools to hospitals in developing countries like India, Unfors RaySafe AB, Sweden, is presenting a special value offer. The advanced QA kit, RaySafe Xi and LTO TOR IQII, is used for measurement of radiation and imaging parameters of radiation equipment. These tools are extremely user-friendly and easy to learn. The key although is to perform measurements as per the regulatory requirement in India. With the purchase of this QA kit, the users will be provided a comprehensive training and guidance on regulatory compliance procedures.
Contact Details:
Rahul Sanghavi
Vice President (Mktg.)
Unfors Raysafe (India)
21, Blue Chip Indl. Estate No.1
Golani Industrial Complex
Waliv, Vasai (East) – 401208
Mob: 9819062553
Website: www.raysafe.com
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