Practice Quality Improvement

Radiation oncology diplomates will participate in a Practice Quality Improvement program in order to satisfy the Part IV requirement of the American Board of Radiology Maintenance of Certification program. Each diplomate is required to complete 3 PQI cycles during the 10-year period.
PQI has three basic steps:

• Assess current daily practice and quality of care;
• Compare current practice to peers and national benchmarks or evidence based guidelines; and
• Apply the best evidence or consensus recommendations to improve that care using follow up assessments.

The ABR has defined two types of PQI projects: Type I and Type II. Type I projects may reflect departmental or institutional quality improvement programs, adopted by the individual to include his or her personal assessment and improvement action plan. Other Type I projects may be based on a society-provided template, and include some means of benchmarking the individual's results against others' results and/or practice guidelines related to the clinical area selected. Still other Type I projects may focus upon a retrospective review of treatment policies and/or outcomes related to a radiation oncologist's practice in a specific disease setting.

Type II projects are society-developed projects with a more robust structure, which have also been qualified in advance by the ABR as meeting Part IV requirements.  At least one of the three PQI projects completed during the 10 year cycle must be a Type II project.