To investigate the effect of quality control circle (QCC) activity in improving the image quality control of the nuchal translucency (NT) ultrasound in women at 11-13⁺⁶ weeks of pregnancy.

The QCC activity was carried out from August 2020 to April 2021 at Department of Ultrasound, Guangdong Women and Children Hospital. The theme of the selected activity was determined to be"improving the image quality control of the NT ultrasound in the 11-13⁺⁶ weeks of pregnancy". Afterwards, a plan was developed to grasp the current situation. The ultrasound image quality of 14 992 patients who had undergone NT ultrasound examination at 11~13⁺⁶ weeks of pregnancy were collected and retrospectively analyzed from August 2019 to April 2020. The ultrasound examination at 11-13⁺⁶ weeks of pregnancy by the same ultrasound physician was scored by three deputy chief or above physicians to assess whether the ultrasonic images met the standard. Then, the activity goal was set, and the countermeasures were proposed. Based on the data, the goal and measures were determined, confirmed, and implemented continuously from August to September 2020. The image quality control of the NT ultrasound at 11-13⁺⁶weeks of pregnancy before the implementation of the measures (from August to April 2018) was compared with that after the implementation of the measures (from October to April 2019) by χ² test.

After the implementation of QCC activity, statistical analysis showed that 92.1% (10 576/11 482) of cases had NT ultrasound images that met the standard, which was significantly higher than that before the implementation of QCC activity (84.9%, χ²=0.000, P<0.001).

QCC activity can effectively improve NT ultrasound images at 11-13⁺⁶ weeks of pregnancy and the professional quality management ability of ultrasonic medicine.