Quality audits of nuclear medicine practices in a middle-income African setting

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) introduced a Quality Management Audits in Nuclear Medicine (QUANUM) programme, to improve nuclear medicine practice standards aligned with international standards through self-assessments. The absence of quality management audits in nuclear medicine departments could potentially result in a compromise in the safety and quality of patient care. To date, there is no evidence that quality audits have been conducted in nuclear medicine departments of this middle-income country. This quality audit, therefore, assessed conformance to the IAEA QUANUM programme in four nuclear medicine departments.

The study adopted a quantitative methodological exploratory approach. The IAEA QUANUM programme was used to audit nuclear medicine services' overall activity such as clinical practice, management, radiopharmacy, general and radiation safety, quality assurance, operations and services. The data was collected via document analysis in four nuclear medicine department identified as Sites A-D.

Overall results showed that Site A conformed with 247 out of 370 (67%) counts and non-conformed with 123 out of 370 (33%) counts whilst Site B conformed with 205 out of 342 (60%) counts and non-conformed with 137 out of 342 counts (40%). Site C conformed with 259 out of 345 (75%) counts and non-conformed with 86 out of 345 (25%) counts. Site D conformed with 166 out of 349 (48%) counts and non-conformed with 183 out of 349 (52%) counts. The study yielded 125 overall recommendations.

All the sites demonstrated good compliance to international standards in radionuclide therapy. Site A complied poorly in strategies and policies, whilst Site B complied poorly in quality control of equipment. Site C showed poor compliance to human resource development and Site D showed aspects pertaining to administration and management as well as evaluation of quality systems.