Establishing a quality control program for an automated dosimetry system

Automatic dosimetry systems can provide instantaneous dose and dose-rate in formation during fluoroscopic procedures as well as long-term records of pa tient doses. For this information to be useful, it is necessary that the ac curacy of such systems be maintained through a rigorous quality control pro gram. Daily and weekly quality control checks were performed on a PEMNET au tomated dosimetry system to determine its stability and the value of such t ests in a quality control program. Weekly tests included monitoring the acc uracy of the measured doses under a variety of conditions. The results of t he tests indicate possible improvements in test methodology and real and po tential sources of system failure and provide a statistical basis for setti ng quality control limits for future system monitoring. (C) 1999 American A ssociation of Physicists in Medicine. [S0094-2405 (99)00508-8].