Quality assurance in mammography. Accreditation, legislation, and compliance with quality assurance standards

The status of mammography quality assurance in the United States has been reviewed briefly. The history, goals, current status, and possible future directions of the ACR Mammography Accreditation Program have been described, and other ACR activities in mammography quality assurance have been discussed, including ACR Standards of Practice in Mammography, ACR Mammography Quality Control Manuals, and the ACR/CDC Cooperative Agreement on Quality Assurance in Mammography. The quality assurance provisions of recently adopted federal legislation on mammography have been reviewed, including the Medicare legislation on screening mammography, along with the proposed Women's Health Equity Act mammography quality assurance provisions. Finally, a simple plan has been proposed to fuse these activities into a coherent program for ensuring consistently high quality mammography at every site in the United States.