The NRQI Programme has agreed on four key quality areas that are most important in terms of measuring the quality of the radiology service delivered to patients and which are published in the national data report each year. These areas are 1) Report Turnaround Times, 2) Peer Reviews, 3) Radiology Alerts and 5) Radiology Quality Improvement Meetings. Targets have been set to guide radiology departments towards best practice.
Each hospital laboratory collects specific information related to these key quality indicators which is then sent to a HSE-owned national database.
The data collected are analysed in a number of different categories to help present findings in a meaningful way. The categories are 1) referral source [link to definition] and 2) the type of imaging (e.g. CT, MRI, Ultrasound or X-ray).
The NRQI Programme gathers information from each of the hospitals taking part and analyses data on the important activities listed below. Please click here to see detailed explanations of each of these areas or key quality indicators.
Each hospital uses a local information system to record relevant patient and procedure related information on a daily basis. Each night, only the information required is automatically uploaded to a secure national database owned by the HSE.
No information is uploaded that could result in a patient being identified.
48 public and voluntary hospitals provide information for the NRQI Programme. No private hospitals take part at this time.
No, the NRQI Programme does not collect any information that could identify an individual patient.
Every year, the NRQI Programme publishes a report on how hospitals have performed in terms of these key quality areas in the previous years, also providing a comparison over a number of years.
This is useful to see where hospitals have continuously improved over time but also to identify areas where more work is needed to reach targets.
This information can inform the radiology team and the hospital management where improvements to patient care are needed most.
All information collected by the NRQI Programme is stored in secure systems. The staff that handle the information are trained on how to comply with all relevant regulations on data protection.
No, this is not possible as the NRQI programme does not have any information that can be used to identify an individual patient.
No, this is not necessary as no personal information is used by the programme. Personal information is that which could identify a patient.