Quantifying radiation safety and quality in medical imaging, part 3: the quality assurance scorecard.

The practice of medical imaging is fraught with inconsistency as it relates to quality assurance, which is due in part to the lack of standardization and objective quality-centric data. By applying the scientific methods of Shewhart and Deming to medical imaging quality assessment, one can devise an objective, data-driven quality model, encompassing the various steps and processes that take place within the medical imaging chain. Through automated recording, tracking, and analysis of these quality data elements, a quantitative scorecard can be derived that provides an objective measure of quality performance, relating to each individual process, participating stakeholder, and technology being used. Through meta-analysis of these quality-centric data, best practice guidelines can be created, which in turn promote quality as the major differentiating feature of service providers.