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Nuclear Medicine Services receives recognition

BAMC News & Awards



Story by Marsha Huffman, BAMC, Public Affairs Intern
Published August 10, 2012



Photo by Marsha Huffman

radiologists examine images from an imaging device

Lt. Col. Anthony Terreri, San Antonio Military Medical Center radiologist, and Patrick O'Brien, Nuclear Medicine Services supervisor, examine images on the computer screen from the gamma camera (an imaging device) in the Nuclear Medicine clinic at SAMMC.

San Antonio Military Medical Center Department of Radiology -Nuclear Medicine Clinic was recently granted a three-year re-certification by the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission of Nuclear Medicine Laboratories.

The IAC accreditation is a "seal of approval" that patients can rely on as an indication that the facility has been carefully critiqued on all aspects of its operations considered relevant by medical experts in the field of Nuclear Medicine. The program is to ensure high quality patient care and to promote health care by providing a mechanism to encourage and recognize the provision of quality Nuclear Cardiology, Nuclear Medicine and Positron Emission Tomography (a imaging that detects changes in the body on a cellular level) diagnostic evaluations by a process of accreditation.

"SAMMC Nuclear Medicine clinic uses the IAC Nuclear/PET accreditation as the foundation to create and achieve realistic quality care goals," said Patrick O'Brien, Nuclear Medicine Services supervisor at SAMMC. "Because the accreditation is renewed every three years, a long-term commitment to quality and self-assessment is developed and maintained."

The IAC Nuclear PET is a voluntary process and grants accreditation only to those facilities that are found to be providing quality patient care, in compliance with national standards through a comprehensive application process including detailed case study reviews.

"This is a voluntary accreditation that we hope serves as an objective marker of excellence for our patients and referring providers," said Lt. Col. Kevin Banks, chief of Nuclear Medicine Services.

"It is a rigorous process, much similar to the American College of Radiology accreditation achieved by our (SAMMC) Women's Imaging Clinic, and we (SAMMC) continues to be the only Department of Defense site to hold this accreditation," he added.

IAC accreditation is widely respected within the medical community, as illustrated by the support of the national medical societies related to Nuclear Cardiology, which include physicians, technologists, and medical physicists.