MO‐B‐I‐617‐01: MR Accreditation Program Quality Control — Beyond Just the Scans and Measurements

Abstract

In recent years, the American College of Radiology (ACR) MR Accreditation Program (MRAP) has been adopted by more than 3000 facilities. Those sites agree to follow a quality control program set up and monitored by the medical physicist or MR scientist. They also agree to undergo initial and annual equipment evaluations by the medical physicist / MR scientist. There are several published documents, including the ACR Phantom Test Guidance and the 2001 ACR MR QC Manual, which describe required phantom tests and performance criteria. While helpful in assisting sites with the submission of phantom images for accreditation, these documents allow great discretion to the medical physicist in setting up the QC program without providing similar guidance in troubleshooting problems for a wide variety of scanners. A consulting medical physicist may see a wide variety of scanners, each for a short period of time, and needs to be able to provide the site with useful recommendations beyond the pass/fail status of the phantom tests. The physicist must gather this information from existing QC data and tests performed with the ACR and other readily‐available phantoms. This lecture will describe additional information which can be gathered from those data to produce recommendations for improving MR image quality. Educational Objectives: 1. Understand basic MR QC tests using the ACR and on‐site phantoms and how the results of those tests can be combined and analyzed to troubleshoot problems. 2. Understand how QC test availability and results may vary depending on scanner manufacturer. 3. Understand how technologist QC data may be analyzed to troubleshoot QC problems.