Vicksburg is home to one of two clinics in the state of Mississippi with an ultrasound-accredited clinic and just one of 18 health care establishments.

Barbara Burrell, lead ultrasound tech at Mission Primary Care Clinic, a registered diagnostic medical stenographer and registered vascular technologist received an accreditation from the American College of Radiology for abdominal and vascular ultrasounds. She’s worked in radiology for the last 35 years with 27 years of experience in ultrasounds.

Abdominal ultrasounds include gallbladder, liver, pancreas, spleen, kidney and aorta organs. Vascular wise the ultrasound looks for carotid arteries in the neck, legs and arms. Burrell also uses ultrasounds to look for problems such as deep vein thrombosis or for any kind of stenosis to make sure a good flow of blood runs to the foot.

“They’re just there to make you better,” Burrell said of the ACR.

Burrell sent eight studies of her patients, which were sent to two separate radiologists. Among her studies were two carotid studies; two abdominal studies; two venous studies of the leg; a kidney study; and a thyroid study.

“You won’t find a clinic our size being accredited by ACR for ultrasound services,” Bill Fulcher, administrator of Mission Primary Care said. “We felt like that was something the community needed to know. We’re doing something here that other clinics don’t do.”

To receive the accreditation, Burrell’s machines had to be certified, calibrated and had to pass the ACR’s standards. From an educational standpoint, Burrell needed the right educational backgrounds and certifications.

The ACR accreditation program requirements said sonographers and technologists must be eligible for certification by the American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers or the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, Sonography.

To renew certification, applicants must be certified and currently registered as RDMS, RT, RVT or RVS at the time of renewal.

Sonographers must be in compliance with ARDM, ARRT or the Cardiovascular Credentialing International to continue education appropriate to their practice.

“The reason Barbara was asked to do this process is because at Mission Primary Care, we want to ensure that we’re providing the best product that we can,” Fulcher said. “We want our patients to know that if they have a study or any type testing here it’s going to be the best that can be provided.”

Fulcher said any service Mission Primary Care provides is accredited by some type of government agency to ensure the clinic is doing quality work.

“We do that not only for ultrasound but MRIs, cat scans and stress test,” Fulcher said. “That’s one thing here at Mission: we ensure that any service we provide, if there’s an accreditation agency that could validate what we’re doing, we’ll go through that process.”