• ACR Acreditation Awarded
• Workplace Safety Honors

The PET/CT Imaging Center, awarded ACR accreditation

The PET/CT Imaging Center, 4000 North Illinois, has been awarded accreditation in oncology by the American College of Radiology (ACR).

Accreditation means that the imaging center meets or exceeds nationally accepted standards of care for its use of positron emission tomography (PET) scans in the diagnosis, staging and monitoring of specific cancers.

The Swansea facility is the only ACR-accredited PET provider in southwest Illinois, and one of ten such sites throughout the state. The center achieved accreditation after voluntarily undergoing an on-site survey and an independent review of the practice, including an evaluation of its procedures, equipment, criteria for staff and the quality of its scanned images.

PET scans are important diagnostic tools.  They allow physicians to observe how organs and tissues function within the body, and to detect unusual metabolic activity potentially indicative of disease. The images may, for example, reveal early-stage and metastatic cancers.

But not all PET scans and diagnostic imaging centers are alike. To improve quality nationwide, U.S. lawmakers recently enacted legislation (H.R. 6331) that requires advanced imaging providers, which participate in Medicare, be accredited by 2012.  This includes PET scan providers.

The accreditation process can take months to complete.  Even then, not all providers receive the ACR seal of approval.

“The American College of Radiology awards accreditation to those medical facilities who have achieved exceptional practice standards after pursuing a rigid peer-review evaluation,” said Dr. Charles DuMontier, who along with Dr. Wallace Anderson, serves as co-medical director of the PET/CT Imaging Center in Swansea. Both men are local board-certified radiologists.

“Accreditation levels the playing field by applying a uniform standard to advanced imaging facilities,” added Dr. Anderson. “It’s also a means of further assuring our patients that the care they receive is as good here as anywhere else.”

News of the accreditation should be especially reassuring to local cancer patients who undergo their PET scans at the imaging center and then go to the Cancer Treatment Center for their radiation therapy. That’s because both centers are ACR accredited in their respective modalities. They are also located on the same campus, and are jointly owned and operated by Memorial and St. Elizabeth’s hospitals of Belleville.

The plaques designate the Cancer Treatment Center as a SHARP facility. SHARP stands for the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program. SHARP status recognizes employers who operate exemplary safety and health programs that result in immediate and long-term prevention of job-related injuries and illnesses.

Participation in the program is voluntary but time-consuming. It involves interviews with employees, a report and on-site surveys followed by implementation of suggested workplace safety practices, if any. The Cancer Treatment Center will retain its SHARP designation for two years and then reapply for recertification.

The Illinois Onsite Safety and Health Consultation Program directs SHARP and is largely (90%) funded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is an agency of the Department of Labor. SHARP is a national program, but is managed on a local level by each state.

Presenting the plaques will be Mary Leikness, manager for Consultation Programs for Region 5 of OSHA (Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois), and David Kramer, manager, of the Illinois On-Site Safety and Health Consultation Program.

The Cancer Treatment Center is the only, SHARP-certified oncology facility in Region 5 of OSHA.

“This designation shows our commitment to safety and health in the work place,” said the administrative/nursing manager at the Cancer Treatment Center who coordinated the effort for SHARP participation. “It means that we are safe for employees — and patients.”

The Cancer Treatment Center is the only comprehensive outpatient oncology facility in Southwestern Illinois. It is owned and operated by Memorial and St. Elizabeth’s hospitals in Belleville and provides outpatient chemotherapy and radiation therapy.