I apologize for my unusually long hiatus from posting. I’d love to tell you that I haven’t written because I’ve been so extraordinarily busy putting the final touches on a set of meaningful standards which will effectively protect the 30,000,000 (that’s million) annual MRI patients in the U.S. from the most frequent preventable MRI injuries. I’d love to tell you that, but it’d be a lie… (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘magnetic’
(Not) Too Late For MRI Safety…
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012PLEASE Don’t Call It The “MRI Safe” Pacemaker…
Thursday, February 17th, 2011It’s almost enough to bring my high school English teacher back from the dead… me, railing on someone else’s vocabulary skills. What I’m talking about here is the new Revo pacemaker (formerly known as Enrhythm) by Medtronic, designed to allow pacemaker patients to receive MRI scans.
Revo MRI Sure Scan Pacemaker by Medtronic
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…
Radiology Safety
Friday, September 24th, 2010Make no mistake, I believe that healthcare has a special obligation to protect the well being of our patients, our beneficiaries, our charges. When it comes to radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation therapy (where treating the patient involves sticking them in an astoundingly complex machine and exercising advanced concepts in physics to have a computer reconstruct fragments of data into an intelligible picture)… well its just so damned complicated that we have to assume the full responsibility for patient safety because, under those circumstances, it is wholly unreasonable to expect the patient to be active participants in their own safety.
‘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…
Wired UK Feature On MRI Projectile Accidents
Monday, September 6th, 2010Color me flattered! (which I think is the color of that shirt in the illustration)
Wired UK Illustration by Lee Hasler. Click for Wired UK source.
The UK edition of Wired magazine just ran one of their ‘featurettes’ on this blog and picked their favorite (though, that’s a slightly squint word-choice for potentially deadly accidents) types of projectile accidents. Quote’s from — and a direct link to — the article follow.
NOT Magnet Safe Scissors!
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010Last year I highlighted an FDA MRI accident report in which a technologist had to have a pair of scissors surgically removed from his forehead after they’d caught him between the magnet-homing missile that they became, and the isocenter of the MRI. You may remember that I fauxtoshopped a hypothesis as to what that accident would have looked like on plain film: perhaps something like this… Click For More On What This Accident Was Like…
MRI Accident Rates: It’s Not As Bad As Previously Reported…
Monday, June 28th, 2010IT’S WORSE!
That’s right, the FDA has updated it’s MRI accident figures available online through the MAUDE database. We were alarmed and astonished when we thought that the rate of increases in MRI accidents was only 270% (from 2004 to 2008). Turns out that the FDA must have found additional accident reports that were in a stack of junk-mail, or got lost between the sofa cushions, which means that the rate if adverse events went up, significantly, in 2008 from the prior calculation.
Click Here To Learn How Much Worse MRI Accident Rates Really Are…
MRI Safety Video Available Online
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010Just a very brief note to let you know that the video of my presentation from the April MRI Safety Workshop at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City is now available for online viewing.
If you’d like to watch it, it’s in 3 parts. The first of 3 is available here (requires QuickTime viewer).
Tobias Gilk, President & MRI Safety Director Mednovus, Inc. Tobias.Gilk@Mednovus.com www.MEDNOVUS.com
CMS Asked To Review MRI For Pacemaker Patient Exclusion
Friday, July 2nd, 2010The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has opened a brief public comment period on a request to lift reimbursement restrictions on imaging pacemaker patients with pacemakers.
Example of a Pacemaker Pulse-Generator Which Could Present Dangerous Contraindications For MRI Exams
Click To Read More And Link To The CMS Info…
Tags: cardiac, CMS, comment, death, defibrillator, device, FDA, hazard, ICD, imaging, implant, injury, magnetic, Medicaid, Medicare, MRI, National Coverage Determination, NCD, pacemaker, public, radiology, resonance, risk, Russo, safety, Scripps
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