Last Updated: January 2023

Author: Radiological and Toxicological Sciences Program, Vermont Department of Health

Note: due to limited staff capacity and ongoing impacts from COVID, no new data is available for this measure.

Dental, veterinarian, medical, mammography, industrial, chiropractic and podiatric facilities using x-ray machines are inspected to determine: 1) the x-ray machine is functioning correctly, 2) the x-ray machines are used properly, and 3) to make sure the exposure to the patient and to the operator is within federal and state limits. Compliance items are based on Vermont Department of Health Regulations, in particular, the recommendations of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.

We consider the 450 x-ray user facilities as partners. While we inspect each of these facilities over the course of four years with a frequency that varies on the basis of health risk, the continued protection of patients and x-ray machine users must be assured by the facilities themselves.

In our partnership with these facilities, our Senior Radiological Health Specialist who conducts all the inspections, shares with them lessons learned. These lessons often not only help reduce the radiation exposure to patients and machine users, but also improve the images themselves. Better diagnostic imaging makes health care better. The success of our partnership and inspection program can be partly seen in the data we publish about x-ray inspections. This data is found at: http://www.healthvermont.gov/enviro/rad/rad_health.aspx.