Quality Management (Ch. 31)

The US federal government began radiologic and imaging sciences quality management regulations after the?

Radiation Control and Safety Act (1968)

How develops and enforces the quality assurance and quality control?

• Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) (part of the FDA)

• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

What does HIPAA stand for and when was it created?

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, created in 1996

What does HIPAA do?

• Simplified standards by encouraging electronic transactions

• Safeguards patina t security and confidentiality

• Established national standards for:

  • electronic record security

  • standardized electronic formats for record keeping

  • standardized electronic identifiers and codes for institutions, personnel, diagnoses, and treatments

  • requirements for confidentiality and privacy rules

Failure to follow HIPAA regulations can lead to what?

Legal penalties such as $250,000 in fines and 10 years in prison

What is the largest hospital accreditation agency?

The Joint Commission (TJC) on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)

Approval from the Joint Commission is linked to what?

• Reimbursements by the federal and state governments, insurance companies, etc.

• Establish quality standards, assess them, and provide certification that individual institutions have met the agency’s standards

FOCUS-PDCA Method

• find and define a problem (F)

• organize a team to work on improvement (O)

• clarify the problem with current knowledge (C)

• understand the problem and its causes (U)

• select a method to improve the process (S)

• plan implementation (P)

• do the implementation and measure change (D)

• check the results (C)

• act to continue improvements (A)

Quality assurance (QA)

Consists of all activities that provide adequate confidence that a radiology service will render consistently high-quality images and services

What are some things that are included with quality assurance?

Evaluating activités such as interpretation of examinations, maintenance of equipment, performance of procedures, staff development, scheduling of exams, and supply lines

How does quality assurance operate?

By identifying problems or potential problem areas, monitoring the problem, and then resolving it

For quality assurance, the monitoring of problems involves several steps that include:

• establishing criteria

• performing monitoring

• collecting, analyzing, and evaluating data

Quality control

The aspect of quality assurance that monitors technical equipment to maintain quality standards

The concept of QC is rooted in the need to ______ the various equipment components of the radiographic imaging chain

Stablize

What is an example of quality control

The system of check to accomplish a measure of consistency in beam output is the quality control

A total quality control system:

• identification of imaging requirements

• development of equipment specifications

• selection of equipment

• installation and acceptance testing

• continuing education

• monitoring of equipment performance

  • processing systems

  • external beam evaluations