A microcomputer based X-ray quality assurance program

Provincial Radiation Health Officers in Saskatchewan carry out routine inspections of all medical X-ray departments and are responsible for providing medical physics services to all small hospitals where there is no staff physicist; this includes supervising the establishment of an effective quality assurance program. Saskatchewan is a part of Canada where travelling in winter used to be difficult, and where, in consequence a large network of very small hospitals has been established to meet the needs of local communities. Today the number of small X-ray departments and the travelling time required to visit them are so great that, although large departments are visited at least once a year, in many small centres routine inspections are possible only once every two or three years. To minimise the likelihood of serious faults or maladjustments remaining undetected for long periods between inspections, a microcomputer system has been developed to collate and analyse data from six different provincial programs with the objective of identifying any centre where conditions that should be corrected may have developed. This provides early indication of where potential problems may exist, and permits inspections to be carried out promptly in the centres concerned