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

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

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

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

Field Certification Composed of 3 parts: –Written exam –Image quality –Accuracy of measurement

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.

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

Field Certification Field technician images are interpreted by reference interpreter technicians Interpreted for –Image quality AcceptableMarginalRejected –Image accuracy

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

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

Field Certification TraitSEPSERBiasCorr Rump/Back Fat ≤0.1≤0.1≤0.1≥0.85 Ribeye Area ≤1.2≤1.2≤1.2≥0.80 Percent IMF ≤1.2≤1.2≤0.7≥0.70

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

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

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

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