Diagnostic Services

Almost all of the new Linear Accelerators that are released on the market currently are equipped with on board imaging that makes patient setup more reliable and reproducible.  This makes it critical that your imaging devices are functioning accurately.  Schneider & Wuest has a wide range of QA tools and phantoms to analyze your imaging devices. We have equipment that can be rented and used by your in-house physics team, or we can come to your site and do all the necessary testing and save your physics staff from doing tedious and highly time consuming imaging QA activities. Whichever method works best for you, we are able to save your facility from purchasing expensive equipment that is not used very often and that you may be unfamiliar with. The imaging constraints evaluated include. ·   

• Spatial Resolution ·        
  
• Laser Accuracy ·        
  
• Image Registration ·        
  
• Volume calculation accuracy ·        
  
• Tissue heterogeneity constancy ·        
  
• Dose calculation accuracy ·        
  
• CTDI

State regulations in Ohio make it mandatory that all hospitals must have the services of a Certified Radiation Expert (CRE). We have over 10 competent CRE’s on our staff that are fully capable of performing the annual testing necessary on your diagnostic equipment. We have CRE’s that are certified in Therapeutic, Diagnostic, and Mammography.  We also do reporting that is required by the state and can review your radiation protection program as well as personnel dosimeter reports. We work with your current staff to develop and provide oversight for your quality assurance program.  Our staff will also attend your Radiation Safety and quality assurance meetings to make sure we are available to answer any questions that might be asked about the radiation program at your facility.  We will perform quarterly reporting of the quality assurance program and submit reviews to the hospital quality assurance committee.  We also do all the annual audits of the quality assurance program that the Ohio Department of Health requires. Our CRE’s are knowledgeable about current state regulations and have proved an integral part in preventing and avoiding inspection citations.  Our staff of physicists has been through many previous inspections, and can help guide you through yours. Our physicists will work with you by implementing policies and procedures that will be in compliance with the state and help correct any deficiencies found.

Area Surveys are mandated by the State of Ohio to ensure that people working around radiation are shielded by adequate barriers.  The Department of Health states that permanently installed x-ray producing equipment must be evaluated by a Certified Radiation Expert to be within compliance.  This is done to make certain that your room has appropriate shielding in the walls and that public dose limits outside your room do not exceed standards.  Our staff is very experienced with evaluating new and existing x-ray room’s and perform surveys on a regular basis.  We have all the necessary equipment to measure leakage radiation from all types of radiation producing equipment.  We then provide your facility with a straight forward and clear report in a timely manner for you to provide to the state.

Schneider & Wuest has participated in the shielding design of over 100 facilities throughout the region. We are involved in the review of blue prints and we work with the architects and construction managers to have a properly functioning and shielded room, whether it be for diagnostic x-rays, CT simulation, MRI or PET units, and also dental units that are becoming common in many orthodontics offices. Schneider & Wuest will work with your design team to help create room designs that comply with NCRP guidelines and also make sure you have appropriate shielding and sensible design. Our recommendations are presented in a timely manner so that construction will not be delayed and your project can keep moving smoothly and on schedule.

Schneider & Wuest is your number one choice when facilities are trying to obtain accreditation by the American College of Radiology.  We have assisted many institutions in gaining this accreditation in areas such as CT, MRI, PET, PET/CT, SPECT, mammography, and ultrasound.  We already have ACR scanning phantoms and can assist your staff through the process.  We have been through this process many times in the past and we understand the how complex and daunting properly filling out the ACR application can be, as well as submitting the correct images.  We have state of the art CT dosimetry testing equipment that will provide you with the knowledge that your system is measured and functioning accurately.  This will leave you confident that your dose calculations are you can scan patients with confidence. Combined our group has over a 99% successful pass rate in getting institutions to pass the process.  Schneider & Wuest can assure you that you will be getting the highest possible level of experience in the area at the most attractive price.

Our company has been designated the Radiation Safety Officer (RSO) at many of the facilities that contract our services. We are comfortable being the persons responsible for the safe use of radiation and radioactive materials.  These responsibilities are mandated for regulatory compliance by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  As RSO we take full responsibility for identifying radiation safety problems, initiating action, devising and approving corrective actions, and making sure your facility is in compliance with regulations.  Some of the other duties include the annual review of the radiation safety program to make sure they are adhering the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable). Quarterly review of occupational exposures for anyone who works with radiation. The RSO will also develop, schedule and holt educational training sessions to inform works about the ALARA program.  Additionally the RSO will ensure that any person who is exposed to radiation will be educated about the ALARA program, as well as informing management, and the Radiation Safety Committee about any incidents.  A review or investigation process will also be set up by the RSO to determine if any workers have been exposed.

 Our group of physicists have been involved in the acceptance testing and commissioning of over 50 Linear Accelerators across the country. We perform a complete end to end test of all your new or updated equipment as well as your treatment planning system.  We perform tests that include mechanical and radiation safety, optical tests, and most importantly dosimetric measurements. We make sure that you accelerator output at different dose rates are consistent and that your monitor and chamber linearity at those different dose rates are within specs.  When it comes to the MLC’s on your machine, we want to make sure that there is no intra leaf leakage.  We perform DMLC QA that consists of MLC transmission factors and dosimetric leaf gaps. We also perform a picket fence test to check leaf positioning accuracy due to carriage movement, leaf speed stability, calibration of leaves, effects of interleaf friction, and accuracy of the leaves in producing complex fields. We will not stop with just testing your Multileaf collimation, we will also examine and test your electronic postal imaging, all hard and dynamic wedges, your record and verify system, as well as your IMRT, VMAT, SBRT, SRS systems.