Comparison of accreditation procedures, ISO 9000 certification and Total Quality evaluation. Personal experience and application for the management of quality assurance protocols in a radiology department

Management of quality assurance protocols in a radiology department can be done by using several tools or models. Some are specific like accreditation manuals issued by some organizations, others like the ISO 9000 certificati on and the Total Quality management are more general and already well known by manufacturers. In order to implement a process of quality improvement, we have reviewed th ree models of quality assurance: evaluation in total quality based on the E uropean model "EFQM", accreditation based on booklets from French cancer ce nters and Canadian radiology centers and, finally, accreditation based on t he ISO 9002 certification model. Based on results of our comparative study, these three tools of quality management are not contradictory and may be c omplementary. However, they can be compared in terms of constraints they im pose, of their historical background, of the criteria evaluated as well as the role of different teams. In conclusion, we suggest that directors of radiology department interested in implementing a quality assurance program first evaluate their departmen t using the Canadian accreditation model issued in 1993 which is useful to become familiar with this new concept of quality. In a second step, a self assessment using the EFQM has to be done in collaboration with ail members of the administration board in order to integrate all parameters and to sha re this protocol with all decision makers. The last step is to consolidate the organization of the quality assurance protocols by means of the ISO 900 2 certification.