Best practices for EQUIP reporting

Best practices for EQUIP reporting with Avera Breast Center and ProMedica Breast Center

The EQUIP initiative is designed to ensure imaging centers uphold a high quality of care for their patients, however the reporting process can be quite time-consuming, often demanding hundreds of hours of work which ends up taking away from patient care and other essential operational tasks. This was the subject of a recent webinar hosted by Volpara Health. Both Rhonda Engebretson, the breast health quality manager at Avera Breast Center, and Kristi Smith, the senior mammography technologist for the ProMedica Toledo Hospital Breast Care Center, joined me to discuss EQUIP reporting best practices.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the webinar:

• Engebretson and Smith manage the EQUIP reporting process for many technologists and radiologists across multiple imaging sites – a task that, when performed manually, resulted in countless hours lost to subjective and time-consuming work.
• Since the adoption of Volpara‘s automated PGMI image scoring software, Engebretson has saved significant time preparing EQUIP reports. 
• Beyond EQUIP, Volpara’s PGMI software also helps Engebretson manage quality feedback for the technologists she oversees, providing objective assessments of mammography positioning and quality and identifying areas for each technologist’s improvement. 
• In Smith’s case, working with Volpara’s software gave her more confidence when she recently stepped up to a new coaching role as the lead technologist at her site. 
• Since ProMedica adopted Volpara’s software in May 2017, they have seen a 20% improvement in target compression and have saved hundreds of hours of time due to the software’s automated EQUIP image selection and documentation, leading lead interpreting physician and medical director, Robin Shermis, to say, “I can’t see how a large and busy practice in breast imaging can meaningfully meet quality assurance without VolparaEnterprise.”

At the end of the day, Volpara’s software acts as a personal coach for mammographers, allowing them to take control of the quality of care they are offering their patients. For a demo of Volpara’s EQUIP reporting solutions and objective PGMI image scoring capabilities, reach out to info@volparahealth.com.

To watch the full webinar, click the link below.