MemorialCare Breast Center in the Todd Cancer Institute at Long Beach Medical Center was recently chosen by the American College of Radiology (ACR) to be one of six hospitals nationwide to participate in their Learning Network’s Mammography Positioning Improvement Collaborative.
This program was extremely selective, with nearly 200 applications submitted for the first cohort. The first cohort runs from April to November 2022 with the goal of improving breast positioning in mammography by ensuring technologists’ skills are well developed and continuously maintained. The minimum requirements for participants included a strong interest in improving mammography positioning, supportive department leaders, and a team of engaged front-line staff and leaders.
The ACR Learning Network constantly pursues improvement in diagnostic imaging through learning a health system’s approach which encourages hospitals to identify common methods to build a culture of performance measurement. The ACR Learning Network heads four improvement collaboratives, which include lung cancer screening, prostate MR image quality, recommendations follow-up, and mammography positioning.
Each of these improvement collaboratives sees participants sharing measures, common issues, and solutions to improve performance in their respective fields. For the Mammography Positioning Improvement Collaborative, the MemorialCare Breast Center will be participating with several other hospitals from all around the United States in order to improve the quality of mammograms, which in turn will improve the detection of breast cancer and decrease unnecessary callbacks. Throughout the following months, Long Beach Medical Center will analyze their data and share the findings of their research in order to achieve the goal of the improvement collaborative.
MemorialCare Breast Center at Long Beach Medical Center is committed to early detection and accurate breast center diagnosis, utilizing state-of-the-art technology for the highest level of breast imaging. The MemorialCare Breast Center at Long Beach Medical Center is accredited by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Center and deemed a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence by the ACR, meaning patients have access to comprehensive care, a multi-disciplinary team and quality breast center.