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For Immediate Release 2/3/2009

Holly Hosler 410-601-8678

Breast Care Center at Northwest Hospital Receives American College of Radiology Accreditation

The Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Care Center at Northwest Hospital has been awarded accreditation in digital mammography as the result of a recent review by the American College of Radiology (ACR). The Breast Care Center has held ACR accreditation ever since the organization started accrediting for mammography in 1992. The Breast Care Center's first digital mammography unit received accreditation in December 2007, and this new designation is for its second digital unit. For the Northwest Hospital Breast Care Center to earn accreditation, the ACR assessed the qualifications of its radiologists, medical physicists and mammography technologists and reviewed equipment standards, image quality, reporting and patient follow-up.

The Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Care Center is part of LifeBridge Health's Alvin & Lois Lapidus Cancer Institute. All of its mammography technology is digital, and as a certified Softer Mammogram Provider, it one of only a few centers in the Baltimore area offering women a free MammoPad®, an FDA-cleared, warmed, foam cushion that dramatically eases the discomfort many women feel when they get a mammogram. In addition to digital mammography, the center offers medical services such as breast ultrasound, breast biopsy and bone densitometry. The new ACR accreditation continues the Breast Care Center's exceptional record of providing quality care with leading edge technology.

The ACR, headquartered in Reston, Va., awards accreditation to facilities for the achievement of high practice standards after a peer-review evaluation of the practice. Evaluations are conducted by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field. They assess the qualifications of the personnel and the adequacy of facility equipment. The evaluators report their findings to the ACR's Committee on Accreditation, which subsequently provides the practice with a comprehensive report.

The ACR is a national organization serving more than 32,000 diagnostic and interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists, and nuclear medicine and medical physicists with programs focusing on the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology and the delivery of comprehensive health care services.

Northwest Hospital is a member of LifeBridge Health, a regional health organization, which includes Sinai Hospital, Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital, Jewish Convalescent & Nursing Home, and related subsidiaries and affiliates. More News...