Production, review, and impact of technical quality control guidelines in a national context

Abstract

A close partnership between the Canadian Partnership for Quality Radiotherapy (CPQR) and the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicist's (COMP) Quality Assurance and Radiation Safety Advisory Committee (QARSAC) has resulted in the development of a suite of Technical Quality Control (TQC) guidelines for radiation treatment equipment; they outline specific performance objectives and criteria that equipment should meet in order to assure an acceptable level of radiation treatment quality. The adopted framework for the development and maintenance of the TQCs ensures the guidelines incorporate input from the medical physics community during development, measures the workload required to perform the QC tests outlined in each TQC, and remain relevant (i.e., “living documents”) through subsequent planned reviews and updates. The framework includes consolidation of existing guidelines and/or literature by expert reviewers, structured stages of public review, external field‐testing, and ratification by COMP. This TQC development framework is a cross‐country initiative that allows for rapid development of robust, community‐driven living guideline documents that are owned by the community and reviewed to keep relevant in a rapidly evolving technical environment. Community engagement and uptake survey data shows 70% of Canadian centers are part of this process and that the data in the guideline documents reflect, and are influencing, the way Canadian radiation treatment centers run their technical quality control programs. For a medium‐sized center comprising six linear accelerators and a comprehensive brachytherapy program, we evaluate the physics workload to 1.5 full‐time equivalent physicists per year to complete all QC tests listed in this suite.PACS number(s): 87.55.Qr, 87.56.Fc, 87.56.‐v

COMP Report: CPQR technical quality control guidelines for CyberKnife® Technology

“…Please refer to the overarching document Technical Quality Control Guidelines for Canadian Radiation Treatment Centres for a programmatic overview of technical quality control, and a description of how the performance objectives and criteria listed in this document should be interpreted. The development of the individual TQC guidelines is spearheaded by expert reviewers and involves broad stakeholder input from the medical physics and radiation oncology community …”

COMP report: CPQR technical quality control guidelines for radiation treatment centers

“…The suite of TQC guidelines outline the minimum performance objectives and safety criteria that equipment or technology should meet in order to assure safe operation and an acceptable level of performance. The development of the individual TQC guidelines is spearheaded by expert reviewers and involves broad stakeholder input from the medical physics and radiation oncology community, including field testing . Guidelines are reviewed and updated every 5 yr, or earlier if necessary due to changes in technology or application, with the most current versions available on the CPQR website in both English and French .…”

“…In a recent publication, we introduced the rationale, development process, and impact of the TQC guidelines in Canada . This announcement serves as a preface to the guidelines themselves, and provides details on how the performance objectives and criteria in the guidelines should be interpreted.…”

COMP report: CPQR technical quality control guideline for medical linear accelerators and multileaf collimators

“…The development of the individual TQC guidelines is spearheaded by expert reviewers and involves broad stakeholder input from the medical physics and radiation oncology community. 1 Refer to the overarching document Technical Quality Control Guidelines for Canadian Radiation Treatment Centres 2 for a programmatic overview of technical quality control, and a description of how the performance objectives and criteria listed in this document should be interpreted.…”