A routine procedure for monitoring clinical ultrasound equipment.
A procedure has been devised for monitoring many critical performance characteristics of clinical ultrasound systems. It is easy to use in a clinical environment and is sufficiently precise to check system consistency or reproducibility. The procedure permits monitoring the system as a whole with enough specificity to locate malfunctioning components. The range response of the system with the beam normal to a planar reflector in distilled water at room temperature is obtained in a single Polaroid image for various control settings. System performance, excluding B mode velocity calibration, display linearity, and position registration, may be routinely monitored with a minimum of measurements. A feasibility test confirmed the method's precision, reproducibility (2%), and ease of performance.