Clinical CT Physics: Emerging Practice
The role of imaging physics in medical imaging is well established. The role of physicists in clinical practice likewise has been well established, where the performance of computed tomography (CT) devices is ascertained by clinical physicists. In the era of value-based care, a technological advancement or specification should be ascertained and optimized toward the value that it provides in the explicit context of patient-care. In the case of CT, the value is the safe rendition of high resolution details of patient and disease anatomy and function. This requires the deployment of clinical metrics: physics-based metrics and metrology that can be related to clinical quality. CT systems are continuously evolving, with new technologies being introduced to the market every year. These new technologies have implications for clinical medical physics and how a physicist might evaluate these technologies. Then integrating new technology would be considerably more streamlined and methodical.
