Filenews 26 November 2024 - by Marilena Panayi
The Health Insurance Organization gives one year to the owners of radiodiagnostic centers to prepare and proceed with the recruitment of doctors, who from January 1, 2026 will be present at all radiodiagnostic examinations that beneficiaries of the General Health System will undergo.
The HIO proceeded with a new draft quality criteria for the GHS radiodiagnostic centres, following a new consultation with the providers of radiodiagnostic services directly concerned, and the date of implementation of all conditions, except for the presence of a doctor, was set at 1 next January.
The criteria and conditions concern both the equipment and their maintenance, as well as the way they are used by radiodiagnostic centers.
Specifically, the planning of the HIO, which was announced yesterday to all GHS providers, consists of two parts. The first part concerns the conditions of operation of the centers within the System and the second the quality criteria that must be met and will be taken into account for compensation purposes regarding, in the first phase, CT and MRI scans.
"Additional conditions put in place include the presence of a doctor throughout the imaging operations performed by radiocompetition centers, the determination of the planned maintenance of CT and MRI systems and the quality control that follows this, the digital archiving of all images and the setting of an upper limit of examinations per hour on CT and MRI scanners."
The quality criteria included in the design concern:
– The age of the systems used in CT and MRI imaging examinations
– The technology of CT and MRI systems
– The certification of radiodiagnostic centers with the CYS ISO 7101:2023 standard
– The degree of satisfaction of the imaging protocols that will be implemented by the Organization in cooperation with all stakeholders.
In a second year, the Agency will proceed with the application of quality criteria and examinations carried out on other types of machines that are not included in the program that is now being promoted for implementation.
The quality criteria included in the HIO's plan include a specific criterion concerning the use of CT and MRI scanners per hour.
Specifically, it is foreseen that CT scanners will perform five tests per hour and MRI scanners only three.
"At the request of the Agency, each radiology centre must provide the documentation to be specified by the Agency in the request to the centre, e.g. documentation of the time at which each imaging was carried out through the digital filing system".
Regarding the maintenance of equipment, the HIO states in its announcement that: for CT scanners, "a certificate is required that preventive maintenance has been carried out at a frequency specified by the manufacturer, while in case of non-determination, this maintenance must be carried out at least annually". For MRI scanners, "a certificate that annual preventive maintenance has been carried out is required. In the relevant certificate, it is necessary to declare the functionality of the system and record faults."
In addition, all radiodiagnostic centers "which perform imaging examinations are required to ensure the digital archiving of all images through PACS/VNA systems in a safe and efficient manner".
