Hospital's Breast-Imaging Department Named 'Center of Excellence'

SSM St. Joseph Hospital West in Lake Saint Louis has earned the designation of Breast Imaging Center of Excellence by the American College of Radiology (ACR). The hospital and SSM St. Joseph Medical Park in St. Peters are the first SSM St. Louis-area facilities to receive the classification and the only ones in St. Charles County to receive the classification.

Tammy Hamma, team leader for SSM Women’s Imaging, said SSM administration intends for all breast-imaging facilities in the system to receive the ACR certification by the end of 2011.

A press release issued by SSM Breast Care said that breast-imaging centers that receive the ACR’s designation have achieved high standards in:

• image quality
• personnel qualifications
• facility equipment
• quality control procedures
• quality assurance programs.

The program is strictly voluntary, said Sandy Cobb, director of Women’s Imaging at SSM Breast Care, a service of SSM Health Care. She said patients can be assured of quality and excellence when they see ACR’s accreditation certificate on the wall in the center. “It lets them know what’s behind that wall. They know the people have voluntarily submitted to and successfully completed this review.”

The designation gives patients confidence in people who staff the imaging center, Cobb said. “It’s important for patients to see this seal,” Cobb said, “because they can be assured that the people who work in that facility are qualified to perform the exam and that the equipment undergoes rigorous quality controls.”

The designation is only given to breast-imaging centers that have earned accreditation in all of the ACR’s voluntary, breast-imaging accreditation programs and modules, in addition to the mandatory Mammography Accreditation Program. The breast-imaging services at SSM St. Joseph Hospital West and SSM St. Joseph Medical Park are fully accredited in mammography, stereotactic breast biopsy, breast ultrasound and ultrasound-guided breast biopsy.

Cobb said SSM Health Care–St. Louis conducts about 3,000 breast screenings per year across its network. The remaining facilities—including SSM St. Clare Health Center, SSM DePaul Health Center, SSM St. Joseph Health Center, and SSM St. Joseph Health Center-Wentzville--should have the designation by the end of the year.

Services at SSM Breast Care include resources and expertise in breast health, from screening and diagnosis to treatment and follow-up support. Multidisciplinary care teams include breast fellowship-trained surgeons, radiologists and breast health specialists, known as nurse navigators.

The ACR's website stated that as of October 1, 2010, 11,475 units at 8,148 mammography facilities were accredited by the ACR.

ACR’s website further stated that the success of the ACR program motivated the U.S. Congress to model the provisions of its 1992 Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) after the ACR’s Mammography Accreditation Program.

ACR’s Breast Imaging Center of Excellence designation is a separate designation, one that is tougher to achieve, requiring a larger commitment both financially and administratively on the part of the applicant, Hamma said. To qualify, the center must be fully accredited in:

• Mammography 
• Stereotactic Breast Biopsy
• Breast Ultrasound

Hamma said the SSM system’s willingness to seek out the additional designation as a Center of Excellence shows patients “we are dedicated to excellence in our field. It is the highest recognition we can receive,” she said.