Quality assurance of picture archiving communication systems with laser film digitizers

A comprehensive quality assurance (QA) program should be implemented for all teleradiology and picture archival and communications (PACS) systems. In this report, we summarize our QA experience with a teleradiology system that includes a laser digitizer for x-ray film. A key component required for the evaluation of laser film scanners is an appropriate test pattern; digitizers should be evaluated with enhanced test patterns specifically designed for this purpose. The phantom pattern should measure high-contrast resolution, low-contrast discrimination, gray scale linearity, geometric distortion, and noise. In addition, a uniformly exposed sheet of film (approximately 0.3 optical density) serves as a good phantom for testing screen nonuniformities of viewing station monitors. It is also suggested that clinical images should be included in a QA program. Finally, it is recommended that any discrepancies in the interpretation of teleradiology images should be monitored and investigated.