Best practices in computerized tomography.

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, ME, was a recipient of the Putting Patients First grant program offered by AHRA and Toshiba. This article presents an overview of the grant activities and the salient findings. The dual focus of the best practice initiative was to promote the physician use of the evidence-based appropriateness criteria developed by the American College of Radiology and to determine ways to improve patient safety with an eye toward incorporating any best practice reported in the literature or recommended by bona fide experts in CT. Some of the resulting best practices consist of: optimizing scanning protocols and scanner settings, utilizing supplemental approaches to dose reduction, and referring patients to excellent online resources.