If you’ve ever been on an email mailing list for the ACR, then you’ve probably received a few of these in the last few months… emails imploring you to contact your Senators and Representatives to urge them to support the Diagnostic Imaging Services Access Protection Act (HR 3269). So far I’ve received three or four of them, and for the ones I’d received previously, I replied, agreeing to contact my elected officials on their behalf, but on one condition…
Posts Tagged ‘American College of Radiology’
It’s Come To This: Trading MRI Safety For Reimbursement Support
Tuesday, March 20th, 2012MRI Safety: Ambivalence vs. Hypocrisy
Monday, December 26th, 2011Ambivalence is rampant with respect to MRI safety. “It hasn’t happened to us (so therefore the risk is just theoretical)”, or “MRI is the safe modality”, or “our last license or accreditation surveyor didn’t say anything, so we must be good.” In large part, I understand this let-sleeping-dogs-lie attitude (I don’t agree with it, but I can understand where it comes from). What I can’t abide, however, is hypocrisy with regard to MRI safety as typified by one entity’s ‘we’re the greatest thing for MRI safety since sliced bread’ PR.
Yes, I’m talking about the ACR…
Transparency & Disappearance
Saturday, June 25th, 2011Ironically, those two words – so similar on the surface – often turn out to be antonyms. Today I’m going to attempt to provide you with some transparency relative to a recent disappearance here on this site.
MRI Safety, Per ACR Accreditation Standards
Sunday, May 15th, 2011“Peachy Keen!”
One can only presume that this is the commentary that US States and radiology accreditation agencies have to offer on the contemporary state of MRI safety. After all, there’s been nothing more than navel-gazing when it comes to measurable changes in standards for MRI providers. Let’s break it down…
MRI Safety Resolution
Saturday, January 1st, 2011I’m not big on New Years’ resolutions. In fact, I’ve previously resolved to not resolve… but today I’m breaking that vow (or would that be a ‘disavow’?). This year there are just too many things precariously poised — that could fall our way or not — that I can’t help but to resolve to rededicate myself to making substantive changes to industry standards and practices for MR safety, and here’s how I’m going to do it…
Calling Out Radiology Accreditation For MRI Safety (video)
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010This past weekend I was invited to present the findings of a study I did with my friend and colleague, Emanuel Kanal. Among his many accolades and credentials, Manny Kanal is the Chair of the ACR MR Safety Committee, a fellow of the ACR and ISMRM, and a neuroradiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The study had a two-part mission, first to review and categorize 18 months of the FDA’s MRI accident data, and second to compare each of these adverse events against existing best-practice standards for MRI safety. The results of the analysis were both stunning, and disheartening…
‘Learn The Things You Don’t Know That You Don’t Know.’
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010This, in essence, is the entirety of point-of-care safety standards for MRI.
“Hey, you, MR technologist! Make sure you know what you’re supposed to know to keep people safe around MRI.“
Make no mistake, as someone who spent a decade in college (which included a Masters degree and about half of a 2nd Bachelors), I’m a huge fan of education. What I’m adamantly opposed to – when it comes to MRI safety – is education without any standards or benchmarks, which is precisely where we find ourselves today.
Click To Read What Tobias Thinks Is Wrong With MRI Safety Training…
“The Magnetic Elephant In The Room (Or Congressional Hearing Chamber)”
Sunday, February 28th, 2010Here we sit, on the cusp of mandatory accreditation for ‘Advanced Imaging’ modalities at outpatient providers (these are CT, MRI and PET), and a series of articles on medical radiation exposure splashes across the New York Times.
In nearly concurrent moves, the Joint Commission (JC) unveils their just-developed Advanced Imaging (AI) accreditation program, the FDA is clamoring for new authority to regulate medical device safety (or gearing-up to use authority that it’s been hiding for safe-keeping, that isn’t exactly clear to me), the US Congress whips together a set of hearings on the issue, and, at those hearings, the American College of Radiology (ACR) recommends that the Feds expand the scope of the AI accreditation requirement to include radiation therapy and to apply the expanded accreditation requirements to hospitals, too.
Whew, that’s a lot of ground covered for radiology in just the last few weeks! Wait a minute… who is that sitting in the backseat? Who has been drug through all of the hullabaloo about radiation exposure and patient safety without once having been considered, individually? MRI, that’s who.
30% Of Contraindicated Implant Patients Get MRIs Anyway!
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010And what’s even more alarming is that 20% of those implant patients that get MRIs experience some sort of device malfunction afterward! And yet, the dangers of imaging these patients are not well known by the doctors who prescribe these imaging studies.
Click To Learn Just How Many Doctors and Patients Are Ill-Informed Of These Risks…