RPRP - Quality Assurance Program

Radiation Exposure and Image Quality Statistics for All Facilities Performing PA Chest Radiographs

Radiation Exposure

(Before QA (year 0) and QA (years 1-7))


Patient radiation exposure measured as “Entrance-Skin-Exposure” (ESE) and reported as milliroentgens (mR).	Machines that measured high or extremely high patient radiation exposure decreased from 13% in the first year to 12% in year-seven of the quality assurance program.

X-ray Image Quality

Image quality scores are measured and reported on a scale of zero to one hundred. Image quality scores are determined by the inspector’s evaluation of a radiograph taken of an image quality phantom tool and processed using the facility’s x-ray film/digital processor. The total image quality score is compiled by the inspector evaluating six areas of image quality including background density, high contrast resolution, low contrast resolution, density uniformity and noise/artifacts. Image quality scores of 0-29 are reported as poor; 30-49 as fair; 50-69 as good and 70 or greater as excellent image quality.

Image quality scores have dramatically improved from year-one to year-seven of the quality assurance program. In year-one, 27% of machines evaluated had image quality scores of 49 or lower. In year-seven, just 9% of all machines evaluated had image quality scores or 49 or lower.

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