Sci‐Fri AM: Quality, Safety, and Professional Issues 05: QC Program Management and the Benefits of QATrack+

Abstract

Purpose:Treatment unit uptime statistics are typically used to monitor radiation equipment performance. The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre has introduced the use of Quality Control (QC) test success as a quality indicator for equipment performance and overall health of the equipment QC program.Methods:Implemented in 2012, QATrack+ is used to record and monitor over 1100 routine machine QC tests each month for 20 treatment and imaging units (http://qatrackplus.com/). Using an SQL (structured query language) script, automated queries of the QATrack+ database are used to generate program metrics such as the number of QC tests executed and the percentage of tests passing, at tolerance or at action. These metrics are compared against machine uptime statistics already reported within the program.Results:Program metrics for 2015 show good correlation between pass rate of QC tests and uptime for a given machine. For the nine conventional linacs, the QC test success rate was consistently greater than 97%. The corresponding uptimes for these units are better than 98%. Machines that consistently show higher failure or tolerance rates in the QC tests have lower uptimes. This points to either poor machine performance requiring corrective action or to problems with the QC program.Conclusions:QATrack+ significantly improves the organization of QC data but can also aid in overall equipment management. Complimenting machine uptime statistics with QC test metrics provides a more complete picture of overall machine performance and can be used to identify areas of improvement in the machine service and QC programs.