Implementation of a national nuchal translucency education and quality monitoring program.
In 2004, leaders in first-trimester aneuploidy screening and a multidisciplinary group of experts established the Nuchal Translucency Quality Review Program, a national program to standardize education, credentialing, and quality monitoring of nuchal translucency. Since its inception, the program has credentialed more than 6,600 physician and ultrasonographer participants and collected more than 2.4 million nuchal translucency measurements. Ongoing quality monitoring is conducted through statistical analysis comparing the distribution and standard deviation of participants' nuchal translucency measurements against those obtained from a standard referent curve. Results of these analyses are distributed to participants quarterly and are used to track each participant's performance and to trigger performance improvement activities or mandatory remediation. This program could serve as a template for future education and credentialing programs that include partnerships with academic leaders, national professional organizations, and industry.
Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, and Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia; the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Emeritus Reproductive Epidemiology, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Washington, DC;San Francisco Perinatal Associates, San Francisco, and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; and the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the Perinatal Quality Foundation, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Mary E
ME
D'Alton
Karin M
KM
Fuchs
Alfred
A
Abuhammad
Beryl
B
Benacerraf
Richard
R
Berkowitz
Howard
H
Cuckle
Richard
R
Depp
James
J
Goldberg
Daniel
D
O'Keeffe
Lawrence D
LD
Platt
Jean Lea
JL
Spitz
Gregory
G
Toland
Ronald
R
Wapner
D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D048208:Nuchal Translucency Measurement / Q000592:standards*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*