A Day in My Life as an Imaging Quality Manager

Editor’s Note: In this new series from AHRA, we ask medical imaging professionals to walk us through a day in their life, hour by hour. Today’s edition features Jeffrey Perez, imaging quality manager at MultiCare in Tacoma, Washington.

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM: Arrive at the Imaging Safety and Quality Department Office

When I arrive at the office, I log in to several programs on my computer: the patient safety reporting system, the imaging technologist quality assurance (QA) program, the American College of Radiology (ACR) website for imaging accreditation projects, radiologist peer review exam processing, Epic Weekly Imaging report review, a Power BI imaging report program, Outlook, and Microsoft OneNote. I multitask during all this while brewing a hot vanilla chai tea.

Next, I review meetings for the day and the week. This includes preparing for meeting metric data collection and creating the agenda for quality imaging meeting per modality.

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Fire Up the Electronic Health Record

I review the electronic health record (EHR) to compare exam safety concernsrelated to the patient safety reporting events. I also utilize three different computer programs — Patient Safety, PACS, and EHR — to review and understand how staff worked with patients in relation to safety in imaging. Safety events are compiled from 10 different hospitals, four medical centers, over 50 retail health locations, and five different outpatient emergency departments.

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Check in on Teams

With the first hour or two of the day behind me, I follow up with the Image Quality Program team, the system physicist, and radiation safety specialist. We focus on topics like radiation safety monitoring for staff, space planning for X-ray rooms, workflow review for staff that operate CT scanners, and the eight rights of radiology for patient identification processes.

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Visit Main Hospital for Accreditation Review

I travel to the main hospital for ACR accreditation review with nuclear medicine (NM) and magnetic resonance imaging (MR) modalities. The lead techs for NM and MR meet to discuss the exam selection, equipment quality control (QC), and annual physicist review with phantom images. Next, I communicate with the radiologist which exams will be submitted to ACR for the testing packet.

12:00 PM – 12:30 PM: Working Lunch With a Colleague

I enjoy a meal with the site imaging operations manager at the main hospital. We discuss content ideas for our imaging intranet page — a website just for employees — such as how we plan to promote the page for use by the imaging technologists and other multidisciplinary staff.

12:30 PM – 2:30 PM: Focus on Technologist QA

Back at my office, I begin to work on technologist QA. Three different computer programs are used for this process: PACS, the imaging tech QA program, and EHR. Every modality lead tech is automatically sent at least three tech cases at random to review for the past seven days. The lead will provide feedback on the exam, which is sent to the performing technologist and me. This provides a 360 review for positive and constructive communication. Next, I perform radiologist tech QA review, where the radiologist offers direct feedback on exam quality. This is quite helpful for the technologist.

2:30 PM – 3:30 PM: Prepare for Meetings

As my day goes on, I prepare for the Radiologist Peer Learning and Imaging QA Committee meetings. These meetings are beneficial for image quality and safety across the organization. We review how the radiologists support our patients through their own peer review. The information is cascaded across all locations to help our hospitals, clinics, and medical centers with image quality, standard work, team engagement, and culture.

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM: Wrap Up

I make sure I save all my work and touch base with lead techs that rely on my support for ACR accreditation. It’s essential to ensure the lead techs are given support on the ACR exam parameters for exam selection. For one of my final tasks of the day, I prepare the MRI safety meeting for the entire enterprise and follow up with each lead MR tech for agenda items, new business, and discuss old business.

Interested in sharing your story or want to recommend someone? Reach out to link@ahra.org.