Dear Members of the MAP Workgroups, Advisory Groups, and Coordinating Committee,
As members of the Patient, Consumer, and Public Health Coalition, we are writing to enthusiastically support the CT quality measures developed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco: Excessive Radiation Dose or Inadequate Image Quality for Diagnostic Computed Tomography (CT) in Adults, at the Clinician/Clinician Group Level, Inpatient Hospital Level, and Outpatient Hospital Level.
The Coalition includes nonprofit organizations representing millions of patients, consumers, researchers, and doctors united to ensure that medical treatments are safe and effective. The coalition does not have paid staff and does not accept funding from any outside sources, so we have no conflicts of interest.
Excess radiation exposure from CT scans poses serious risks to patients. CT imaging can be tremendously useful to patients, but there is currently no national oversight of radiation dosing, resulting in wide variation in the radiation doses used for CT. This can be especially dangerous because many patients undergo numerous CT scans. We support these CT quality measures because they establish a floor and a ceiling to provide an optimal level of radiation exposure for imaging for numerous different conditions, without reducing the diagnostic benefits of those scans. Standardizing CT scan radiation exposure is long overdue, and for that reason we strongly urge you to include this measure in the final list of measures under consideration by the Measure Applications Partnership.
Sincerely,
AMSA Wisconsin
National Center for Health Research
National Women’s Health Network
MedShadow
Medical Devices Problems
SCAD Alliance
TMJ Association
USA Patient Network
WoodyMatters