U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs Selects ACR to Accredit All VA Radiation Oncology Facilities
The American College of Radiology, the nation’s oldest and most widely recognized radiation oncology and medical imaging accrediting body, has been awarded a three-year contract from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to serve as the accrediting organization for all VA hospital radiation oncology facilities nationwide. The 33 VA facilities will go through the ACR accreditation process over the next three years.
“The ACR is extremely proud to do its part to help ensure that our nation’s veterans receive the highest quality health care available. American servicemen and women have demonstrated their commitment to our country. The ACR is committed to ensuring that they receive consistent, quality care,” said ACR Executive Director Harvey L. Neiman, M.D., FACR.
There are currently more than 200 radiation oncology facilities in the United States that are ACR accredited or in the accreditation review process. ACR accreditation is an efficient process of both self-assessment and independent external expert audit, based on the ACR guidelines and technical standards, which assesses the qualifications of personnel, policies and procedures, equipment specifications, QA activities, patient safety, and ultimately the quality of patient care.
ACR accreditation requires that the physicians providing radiation therapy treatment to patients meet stringent education and training standards. ACR accreditation also requires that the equipment is surveyed regularly by qualified medical physicists to ensure that it is functioning properly, and that the radiation therapists administering the treatments are appropriately certified.
The purpose of these programs is to set quality standards for practices and help them continuously improve the quality of care they provide to their patients. ACR accreditation programs provide an objective, peer-reviewed assessment of facilities through evaluation of personnel qualifications, equipment requirements, quality assurance and quality control procedures.
The ACR has a long history of providing accreditation for diagnostic imaging and radiation oncology going back as far as 1963. In 1994, the ACR became the only national accrediting body for mammography accreditation approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Mammography Quality Standards Act. Quality standards for mammography facilities have been credited with saving tens of thousands of women’s lives. In addition to mammography, the ACR currently has programs to accredit MRI, CT, nuclear medicine, PET and ultrasound, radiation oncology, as well as stereotactic breast biopsy and breast ultrasound. The ACR currently accredits more than 16,000 radiation oncology and medical imaging facilities in nine separate modalities nationwide.
The ACR, headquartered in Reston, Va., awards accreditation to facilities for the achievement of high practice standards after a peer-review evaluation of its practice. Surveys are conducted by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field. The surveyors report their finding to the ACR’s Committee on Radiation Oncology Accreditation, which subsequently provides the practice with a comprehensive report.
Click here to visit the ACR Web site accreditation section for more information regarding ACR accreditation.