What is continuous quality improvement?
-Complete quality management that includes maintenance of an equipment.
-Focuses on the process rather than on the people or service.
What is some example of continuous quality improvement?
Documenting a non-diagnostic image.
What is quality control?
-Focuses on the equipment operations.
-Set of comprehensive activities intended to monitor and maintain the system that produces a product
-Subdivision of quality management that focuses on equipment functions.
List daily quality control activities?
-Audio, visual indicator for proper functions
-Inspect for mechanical soundness and smooth motions
-Equipment warm up
List weekly QC activities?
-Erase Cassette
-Clean outside of IR
-Clean air intakes on images
-Clean all displaying monitors, keyboard, mouses
-Phantom testing on x-ray equipment (per vendor)
List all monthly activities?
-Cleaning imaging plates inside cassette CR
-Access digital displaying devices
-Use TG18-QC patterns or SMPTE to clean
-Use photomotor to test luminance
-Repeat and Reject an image
What is reject vs repeat
Reject: error in the image / computer
Repeat: due to motion in the image
What is semi QC activities?
-Preventative maintenance
-Shields visually inspected
-Done by service personnel
What is annual QC activities?
-Shield testing x-ray
-Done by physicist
What is quality assurance?
-Focus on the people and service
-Plan for the observation and assessment of different aspect of a project service, facility to make a certain standard are being met.
-Another term of quality management; typically focuses on the people and service
What is the purpose of a personal repeat log?
To keep track of what exam is being repeat and the reason for it
Who performs preventative maintenance on an x-ray equipment and how often is it done?
-Service personnel complete this exam.
-It is done semi-annual or twice a year
-It is to ensure that the equipment is operating within standards
-including any updates, errors or repair
Who performs annual testing on x-ray equipments?
-Physicists
-Done once a year
-Wants to make sure that equipment is operating within standards
What is HIS?
Stands for hospital information system
-Information system throughout a healthcare system; including direct patient care information, billing system and reporting system
What is RIS?
Stands for Radiology Information System
-Consider for the core system for electronic management of imaging department. Used by radiologist to edit and report radiology diagnosis
What does PAC stands for?
Picture Archiving and Communication System
What is the PACS administrator?
The person who is trained to oversee the PACS
What is super user?
Someone who is trained within the hospital to help troubleshoot and teach other the use of PACS
What is PACS?
Consists of digital acquisition, displaying workstation and storage device interconnection through a network
What does SMPTE stand for?
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
What does DICOM stand for?
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine
What is DICOM?
-The standard protocol used for transferring medical images. -Standard language that all digital imaging equipment must use to ensure proper communication between all parts.
Who developed DICOM?
American College of Radiology (ACR) and National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA)
What is an artifact?
Avoidable unnecessary information on the image that interferes or distracts from an image quality
What is phantom image?
Artifact that occurs in computed radiography when the imaging plate is not erased adequately before the next image is exposed on it and two images are recorded onto the plate phosphor.
What is aliasing?
Refers to incorrect measurement of signal frequency due to an inadequate digital sampling rate
What is TG18-QC test pattern used for?
-To clean out images
-Task group number of 8 of the American Association of Physicist in medicine
What is Modulation transfer function
Ability to system to record available spital frequencies
What is detective quantum efficiency?
Measurement of how efficiently a system converts an x-ray input signal into a userful output image
What is dynamic range ?
the ability of an image system to respond to varying level of exposure, resulting in more details.
-The number of shades of gray that imaging system can reproduce
-Only shows one gray at time
Will a wide latitude or narrow latitude image receptor be able to used over a greater range of exposures?
The range of exposure value the image detector is able to produce. An imaging receptor with wide latitude can be used over a greater range of exposures.
What is brightness?
Level of intensity of a digital image on a display monitor.
-How light or dark a digital image appears on a displaying monitor
What is contrast resolution?
The ability of a digital system to display subtle change in grayscale values.
- The technologist controls contrast by varying the KVP.
What is spatial resolution?
amount of detail or sharpness in a digital imaging.
-The ability of an imaging system to demonstrate small details on an object.
-Affects spatial resolution: SID,OID, Tube/part/ IR angulation
Explain the pixel size along with matrix.
Also can determine spatial resolution.
-Determined by pixel size. Smaller pixel gives better spatial resolution. Also affects by matrix size, larger matrix gives better resolution because larger matrix size allow for smaller pixels in that matrix.
What is saturation of an IR and how does it indicate?
-Demonstrated on an image as a loss contrast resolution with some or all the structures demonstrating a black shade.
-The post processing technique of windowing cannot restore the saturated area.
Indicated: Overexposure
The patient thickness should be measured with what?
Cailpier
How does changing the SID affect image quality?
Also needs the change in MAS
-To keep EL number in range, only change SID greater 10% should be compensated by adjusting the mAS
-Use the direct square law formula
what is window level
-Determine the midpoint of range of densities visible on the digital imaging.
What is window width?
The control that adjust the contrast by adjusting the visible range of densities on the image
What is additive pathology?
A disease that causes the affected body to INCREASE in thickness, effective atomic number and density
What is destructive pathology?
A disease that causes the affected body to DECREASE in thickness, effective atomic number and density
What is hypersthenic?
A large frame, thick or heavy set body.
-Higher exposure factors
What is a sthenic body habitus?
Average body
What is the asthenic body habitus?
Extremely heavy set body
-Reduction in exposure factors
What is hypostenic?
thin, small, tiny than average person
-Lower exposure factors
What is image quality?
-Refers to the structure being image is rendered on the image
-Not easy to defined and cannot be precisely measured
-Most common characteristic is: spatial resolution, contrast resolution, noise and artifacts
What is contrast resolution?
The ability of imaging system to distinguish between shades of gray that an imaging system can reproduce
What is subject contrast?
The density of the part being image and how it will appear on the image
Provide example of subject contrast
Bone is more dense therefore will show a higher contrast
-Fat is less dense therefore will show lower contrast
-Chest is inherently a high contrast body part
-The abdomen is inherently a low contrast body part
What is image noise?
Shows up as a mottled appearance in the image
-Most offerent caused by not enough receptor exposure
-Usually required a repeat image.
What is EI exposure indicators?
Reading that tells the amount of radiation intensity that strikes the IR
-Not a measure of patient dose because they do not take into account the neergy level of the x-ray
How is EI processed?
-After histogram developed, the EI reading is read by the computer
-it is the shades of grey value
-taken at midpoint of the volume of interest
-the EL is displayed on the images
What is image artifacts?
-Any unwanted structures seen on the image
-caused can be anatomic, external and internal.
-also mechanical errors of the IR and image processing and errors
Examples: IR lines or draining tubes
What is ascites? Is it additive or destructive?
accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity
ADDITIVE
What is atelectasis? Is it additive or destructive?
collapse of the alveoli in the lung
ADDITIVE
What is Osteoarthritis? Is it additive or destructive?
Degenerative joint disease
ADDITIVE
What is rheumatoid arthritis? Is it additive or destructive?
autoimmune disease
DESTRUCTIVE
What is osteoporosis? is it additive or destructive
a medical condition in which the bones become brittle and fragile from loss of tissue, typically as a result of hormonal changes, or deficiency of calcium or vitamin D
DESTRUCTIVE.
What is osteopetrosis? Is it additive or destructive?
Marble bone, where bones become harden
ADDITIVE
What is edema? Is it additive or destructive?
a condition characterized by an excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body.
ADDITIVE
What is pleural effusion? is it additive or destructive
accumulation of fluid in the pleural space
ADDITIVE
What is a bowel obstruction? Is it additive or destructive
Blockage at the intestinal lumen impeding passage of bowel
ADDITIVE
What is a pneumothorax? is it additive or destructive
air in the pleural cavity
DESTRUCTIVE
Use Quizlet set mod 4 to go over vocabulary
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What is acceptance testing?
-Performed before newly installed equipment can be used on patients
-Also performed after a major repair
-Done by physicists
What is routine maintenance?
Performed to ensure equipment is performing as expected.
-Includes tech weekly, daily, monthly etc duties
-Can be done by medical physicist and service personnel
What is error maintenance?
-Performed when errors and correction action must be taken
-Done by service personnel