In the field of diagnostic imaging,
simple Quality Control,
capturing the equipment performance,
has gradually evolved to Quality Assurance and more recently to Quality Management,
with the objective of continuous quality improvement (Fig. 2).
Comprehensive quality systems include all aspects of medical imaging process, such as room and workflow design,
equipment selection,
equipment purchase,
installation oversight,
acceptance testing,
commissioning,
quality control,
on-going equipment maintenance and support,
and disposal at the end of the equipment’s useful life.
The IAEA,
and specifically the Division of Human Health,
has been traditionally working in supporting Member States establish effective quality systems in diagnostic imaging.
The support provided (focusing on Medical Physics) can be roughly categorized in the following fields:
- Support the development of human resources in Member Sates through training.
Training is a large proportion of the IAEA work.
Through a structured process it can address the needs of individual professionals (fellowships and scientific visits),
Member States (national training courses),
Regions (regional training courses) or even international needs (ICTP courses) (Fig. 3).
Specificall in the field of Quality,
such training could adreess the needs of professionals (radiologists,
medical physicists,
radiographers) to establish and support quality assurance programs,
or even to be introduced to the principles of clinical audits in order to be able to function as external auditors.
The IAEA Human Health Campus (Fig. 4) can be cosidered as the online information and education resource for health professionals working in radiation medicine,
providing insight into the different aspects of modern clinical practice.
- Development of guidelines and documents to support clinical professional
Guidelines on the structure,
content and requirements of comprehensive quality assurance programs have been published for several imaging modalities,
such as Computed Tomography Fig. 5 [1] and Mammography [2,3].
At the same time,
promoting the role and significance of the comprehensive clinical audits,
the IAEA has developed corresponding guidelines on the implementation of a comprehensive audit in diagnostic radiology departments (Fig. 6) [4].
- Function as the independant auditing body for comprehensive clinical audits
Following a request by a hospital,
the IAEA is responsible for forming the auditing team,
assuring the principle of independence between the auditors and the audited department.
For low and middle income countries,
funding for the audit might be granted through a national or regional technical cooperation project.