Ultrasound Guidelines Council: Certification

1. Ultrasound Guidelines Council: Certification Lisa A. Kriese-Anderson Auburn University

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Field Certification • Composed of 3 parts: • Written exam • Image quality • Accuracy of measurement

6. 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.

7. 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

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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Field Certification

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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