A QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM BASED ON ISO STANDARDS - EXPERIENCE IN A RADIOTHERAPY DEPARTMENT

The European radiotherapy society has for many years had a great inter est in quality assurance. The EORTC radiotherapy group has put enormou s effort into its quality assurance programmes. However, besides progr ammes for dosimetry and guide-lines for infrastructure, the organisati on of a department should also be subject to a quality assurance syste m. In 1992, in the radiotherapy department in Leiden, a project was st arted to develop a quality assurance system based on the so-called ISO 9001 quality standards. This paper describes how these standards can be applied to create a quality assurance system in a hospital departme nt.