Ultrasound Guidelines Council: Certification

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Ultrasound Guidelines Council Certification

• Lisa A. Kriese-Anderson
• Auburn University

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Purpose

• Certification of field (scanning) and lab
  (interpreting) technicians serves to
• Ensure the highest quality ultrasound images and
  interpretations for rump and backfat, ribeye area
  and percent intramuscular fat
• Adds additional credibility to ultrasound process
• Ensures highest quality data to breed
  associations for genetic evaluation

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Certification

• Two types of certification
• Field
• Allows technician to measure cattle, save images
  and send to centralized processing lab
• Lab
• Interpret images field technicians send into
  centralized processing labs
• A technician can be both field and lab certified
• Certification is valid for 2 years

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Why Certification Every 2 Years?

• Why must previously certified technicians
  continue to go through certification?
• To ensure images continue to be of highest
  quality to meet the needs of the beef industry
• Potential opportunities for continuing education
• Developments in industry, hardware, software,
  trouble shooting

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Field Certification

• Composed of 3 parts
• Written exam
• Image quality
• Accuracy of measurement

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Field Certification

• Until 2005, one field certification held each
  year
• Generally held at a university setting
• Chutes are set up serially and 20 head of
  finished and breeding cattle are measured by each
  technician twice
• Technicians measure and record images for rump
  fat, rib fat, ribeye area and intramuscular fat
• Technicians turn in images at the end of the
  scanning session
• Technicians are certifying for a particular
  scanning system.

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Field Certification

• Cattle are also scanned by reference technicians
  (2 per certification)
• Cattle are harvested and carcass data collected
  including ether extract analyses
• Generally half of the cattle are harvested
• Reference technician and carcass data are
  combined to serve as official results

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Field Certification

• Field technician images are interpreted by
  reference interpreter technicians
• Interpreted for
• Image quality
• Acceptable
• Marginal
• Rejected
• Image accuracy

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Field Certification

• Written exam
• Must have a score of 70/100 to pass
• Image quality
• Must have 80 image acceptance rate for each
  trait to pass
• Accuracy
• Certification statistics of SEP, SER, bias and
  correlation are determined for each trait

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Field Certification

• SEP Standard error of prediction
• How precise compared to the official
  measurements are the technicians measurements?
• SER Standard error of repeatability
• How repeatable are the technicians measurements?
• Bias How close to the official results are the
  technicians measurements? Under- or
  over-estimate
• Correlation Correlation between technicians
  measurement and official measurement

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Field Certification
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Field Certification

• Becoming certified is not automatic
• For new technicians, failure rate is 33 to 50
• For previously certified technicians, failure
  rate is 10 to 15
• Once pass certification, good for 2 years

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Lab Certification

• Technicians wishing to interpret images must
• Pass written exam
• Quality classify images
• Accurately interpret images
• Technicians will be certified to interpret a
  specific image type (Aloka, Classic, Sono Vet
  2000, etc)
• Lab certifications can be administered at the
  various centralized processing labs or in
  conjunction with field certification

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Seasoned Technicians

• For field technicians who have passed at least 2
  consecutive field certifications and scan a
  minimum of 1500 head/year
• A random sample of images (3 herds 20 head ea)
  can be selected from images sent into centralized
  processing labs
• Certified lab technicians will score the images
  for quality. Must meet standards for image
  quality acceptance

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Ultrasound Industry

• Certification is a highly rigorous process
• If you could be a fly on the wall during
  certifications
• High pressure
• Professional
• Technicians are dedicated to doing a good job
• Their livelihood depends on it w/large
  investments in equipment
• Ultrasound industry is providing data for EPD
  estimations