The Mount Desert Island Hospital Imaging Department has been awarded gold seal accreditation by the American College of Radiology (ACR) for CT and cardiac CT imaging.
MDI Hospital is now one of only three ACR-accredited cardiac CT imaging facilities in Maine. “This shows that we are quality-minded to the point that we invite an external national organization to review what we do,” said Jeff Murad, MDI Hospital’s director of imaging.
The ACR is a national professional organization that awards accreditation to facilities for the achievement of high practice standards after a peer-review evaluation of the practice. The purpose of the review is to assess the qualifications of the personnel and the efficiency of the facility equipment.
To achieve ACR accreditation, an applicant must meet a rigid set of criteria including image quality, physician and technician training and experience, adherence to established protocols and equipment efficiency. “This is a way to measure how well we are doing,” Murad said. “By receiving this accreditation we know that we meet or exceed the national standard. This also confirms our commitment to radiation dose reduction efforts.”
Cardiac CT imaging is a specialized service that is not offered by every facility that provides CT exams. “It has a steep learning curve for the physician and technician and requires high-quality equipment like we have here,” said MDI Hospital’s Chief Radiologist John Benson, MD.
In addition to CT, MDI Hospital is ACR-accredited for ultrasound and nuclear medicine services. The Breast Center is an ACR-accredited Breast Imaging Center of Excellence for mammography, breast ultrasound, ultrasound-guided biopsy and stereotactic breast biopsy.
The ACR, headquartered in Reston, VA, is a national organization serving more than 32,000 diagnostic/interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and medical physicists with programs for focusing on the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology, as well as the delivery of comprehensive health care services.