Stephen Smithbower, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Rasika Rajapakshe PhD, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Janette Sam RT, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Nancy Aldoff, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Teresa Wight, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Christine Margaret Wilson MD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Many of the required daily and weekly quality assurance procedures tend to be simple tests that involve a fair bit of manual work, such as selecting and measuring regions of interest and recording results in Excel. Such work can easily be automated by software, and the results of the tests stored in a centralized database in order to facilitate region-wide tracking of mammography unit performance. We propose a software platform, mQC, that utilizes British Columbia's province-wide PACS network to provide automated quality control measurement and recording. This report summarizes our development and implementation process.

The original mQC implementation was a local, stand-alone software package deployed on a workstation at each mammography center. This approach proved unmaintainable, due to IT issues (firewalls, administrative privaleges on workstations, difficulties in performing software updates). As a result, mQC was retrofitted as a centralized server residing in one location that would poll the BC Transfer Grid and automatically process pending images for all connected centers.

mQC is currently servicing 19 different centers across British Columbia. Additional development is being done to expand the number of tests the platform provides, and to improve mQC's reporting capabilities. Work is also being done on the platform to allow deployment by third-parties, as there has been both commercial and provincial interest in mQC outside of British Columbia.

Our centralized, PACS-network aware automated quality control platform has been able to reduce the time spent by technologists to perform quality assurance tests on mammography units, while simultaniously improving the access to QA test results across the province by providing a centralized database. A website accompanies the platform, allowing technologists at any center to log in and view the results of their tests in real-time.

Smithbower, S, Rajapakshe, R, Sam, J, Aldoff, N, Wight, T, Wilson, C, mQC: A Centralized Platform for Automated Mammography Quality Control.  Radiological Society of North America 2013 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, December 1 - December 6, 2013 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2013/13029206.html