WE‐D‐9A‐06: Open Source Monitor Calibration and Quality Control Software for Enterprise Display Management

Abstract

Purpose:Medical display monitor calibration and quality control present challenges to medical physicists. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate and share experiences with an open source package that allows for both initial monitor setup and routine performance evaluation.Methods:A software package, pacsDisplay, has been developed over the last decade to aid in the calibration of all monitors within the radiology group in our health system. The software is used to calibrate monitors to follow the DICOM Grayscale Standard Display Function (GSDF) via lookup tables installed on the workstation. Additional functionality facilitates periodic evaluations of both primary and secondary medical monitors to ensure satisfactory performance. This software is installed on all radiology workstations, and can also be run as a stand‐alone tool from a USB disk. Recently, a database has been developed to store and centralize the monitor performance data and to provide long‐term trends for compliance with internal standards and various accrediting organizations.Results:Implementation and utilization of pacsDisplay has resulted in improved monitor performance across the health system. Monitor testing is now performed at regular intervals and the software is being used across multiple imaging modalities. Monitor performance characteristics such as maximum and minimum luminance, ambient luminance and illuminance, color tracking, and GSDF conformity are loaded into a centralized database for system performance comparisons. Compliance reports for organizations such as MQSA, ACR, and TJC are generated automatically and stored in the same database.Conclusion:An open source software solution has simplified and improved the standardization of displays within our health system. This work serves as an example method for calibrating and testing monitors within an enterprise health system.