IMPLEMENTATION OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAMME IN LITHUANIAN HOSPITALS

In accordance with national legislation, international guidelines and recommendations, the quality assurance (QA) programme must be established in nuclear medicine departments and it must meet high quality standards. QA programme should cover many aspects such us radiation protection of patient and staff, waste management, records keeping and report writing, training and continuing education of personnel, audits, quality control (QC) of imaging modalities, radionuclide dose calibrators, radiopharmaceuticals, etc. In this paper aIn order to develop national guidelines for improvement of QA system including QC in nuclear medicine, there were comprehensively analysed recommendations of different national and international organizations (IAEA, EANM, ACR, AAPM, NPL) and manufacturer supplied information. In addition, problems and needs in nuclear medicine in Lithuania are discussed. The appropriate QA and QC programme, traceability of measurements, written procedures, the acceptance and commissioning procedures and routine tests are the fundamental part of proper quality management programme. The analysis of the current status of national QA and QC content revealed that there are requirements in Lithuania legislation for QA management system, but there is lack of criteria for their implementation and QA management systems are implemented inconsistently in nuclear medicine departments in Lithuania. The purpose of this work is to compare the recommendations of different international organisations for equipment used in nuclear medicine department and in near future develop the national guidelines for QA system in nuclear medicine to ensure the quality of QA programmes and consistency of these programmes implementation in Lithuanian hospitals to assure the safety of patients.