How to pick just one when there are a number of alarming, tragic, and needless MRI accidents to choose from? Let’s look at one that we can help the reader better imagine, the case of a pair of flying scissors that had to be surgically removed from a technologist’s forehead…
This week the settlement documents were released — closing the chapter on the lawsuit that arose from the seminal event in MRI safety, the 2001 oxygen tank fatality of then-six-year-old Michael Colombini.
It is the stuff of fabled oral-histories, often dismissed as MRI urban-legend. The patient is wheeled into the MRI room on a gurney that goes flying toward the scanner. “How on Earth could these accidents happen when we know about these risks,” the skeptics question? Almost never does more than a single fragment of information surface about these sorts of accidents and, without verification, nearly all accounts can be erroneously written-off as fiction. Or, that was until enough pieces fell into place to conclusively document a recent episode… Click Here To Read More About MRI Gurney Accidents…
In the radiology community, it’s widely known… the economic downturn has eviscerated the equipment manufacturers’ sales of high-dollar imaging tools. The sour economy, coupled with the drastic cuts in MRI and CT reimbursements, in particular, have hit those two modalities hardest. Eighteen months into this economic malaise, are there signs of recovery? Apparently GE Healthcare thinks so…
Yesterday I was provided a copy of an anonymized MRI accident / incident report which described how an MRI patient wearing a ThermaCare HeatWrap (something of a self-warming patch for muscle aches) had the wrap pulled off of them by the magnetic attraction of the MRI.
ThermaCare HeatWrap Products Contain Iron And May Be Drawn Into MRI Scanners
Throughout 2009, we saw tantalizing glimpses of potential MRI safety improvements, which repeatedly escaped becoming real. Here are my ‘Top 3′ near-miss opportunities of 2009 to substantially reshape MR safety…
This post attempts to draw-together two recent threads from here on the MRI Metal Detector blog. First, there was a long-running question about the FDA and their online-accessible database of medical device accidents which, for months, appeared to be malfunctioning, and recently was repaired. Second, there was my post in which I identified 5 MRI ‘Never Events’ which, if industry standard procedures are followed, should never occur.
The Athens, Alabama, News Courier ran a story December 4th on their website about a 21-month boy who received a 3rd degree burn from an MRI. This hits square in the middle of the 5 MRI ‘never events’ that were enumerated a few months ago here on this blog.
In the Tuesday, December 1st, issue of the RSNA Daily Bulletin, the ‘Tip of the Day’ was provided by the American Association of Physics in Medicine. The tip identifies specific risks of ferromagnetic tools and hardware associated with orthopedic devices, such as ‘halo’ vests…
