Interested in ultrasound user quality assurance?

Question: If user ultrasound QA activities only take five minutes to do per month, what is stopping some ultrasound departments from doing QA checks?

This was the question that was posed to various ultrasound departments around the country last year. The answer came back:  knowledge, time and resources.

As a result of these responses, Multi-Medix is offering free, short webinars enabling ultrasound apartments to ‘kick-start’ their quality assurance programmes. The webinars follow on from the free Diagnostic Ultrasound Quality Assurance Manual that was sent to all hospital ultrasound departments in December 2020. Further copies can be downloaded on the Multi-Medix website via the Online Knowledge Portal. In addition to the manual, there are also accompanying ‘how to’ video guides.

QA is a mandatory activity: all ultrasound bodies around the world agree on this. Anecdotal experience and evidence is that not all ultrasound departments consistently perform daily, weekly, monthly and annual ultrasound system checks. However, this does not mean that there is no interest in starting a quality assurance programme. Since the Diagnostic Ultrasound Quality Assurance Manual was released, Multi-Medix has received many emails and queries, despite the considerable strain the pandemic has placed on ultrasound departments.

As the pressure slowly eases on sonographers, it may be a timely opportunity to attend a focused, ‘bite-size’ webinar that would enable an ultrasound department to start a quality assurance programme or simply remind sonographers on what to do and what to look for.

The webinars will be hosted by Dr Nick Dudley and Darren Woolley, who are being joined in the final session by Gillian Harrison from SCOR. They are designed to be informative but also informal, so that attendees can ask the sort of questions they may have been ‘too scared to ask’ in the past. All webinars will also be recorded and available via the Multi-Medix Online Knowledge Portal.

Some QA activities literally do take less than five minutes and sonographers would be able to start them the day after the webinar. Find out more by signing up: the registration form can be found on the Multi-Medix website. The first webinar is on Tuesday, May 4, at 7:30pm. In the meantime, if you have any ultrasound quality assurance queries, please visit the website, email or call 0333 011 0550.

This news story has been sponsored by the companies concerned and does not represent the views or opinions of RAD Magazine.