A few weeks ago the announcements came down, CMS had ‘deemed’ three organizations to accredit the new classification of Advanced Imaging in order to be eligible for Medicare & Medicaid reimbursement: the American College of Radiology (ACR), the Intersocietal Commission, and the Joint Commission (TJC).
The other two have had modality-specific accreditation programs for years, so what was the TJC going to do? Well, they’ve released their accreditation criteria, and one of the most wonderful surprises is that MRI safety is more prominent than it is in either of the other two ‘imaging’ accrediting bodies!
OK, I’ve been reading too many headlines in supermarket check-out aisles, but what else is a guy with an overactive imagination supposed to come up with?
You see, back in 1983 when GE was going through their pre-market approvals with the FDA for their first commercial clinical MRI system, they indicated that MRI suite safety minimally required ferromagnetic detection pre-screening. The only problem was, it hadn’t been invented yet!
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…
Near the end of last year I posted an article from an RSNA ‘tip of the day’ regarding external fixation, halo, hardware and ferromagnetic risks. Now, in the first few weeks of 2010 we learn of new MRI safety risks from orthopedic hardware that may be more common than halo systems, scoliosis body braces.
External fixation and braces are typically very carefully screened for contraindication for MRI examination, but what may not be as frequently screened is the clothing underneath. Click Here For The Rest Of The Story…
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
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…
“Tweet, tweet” is usually all I hear from little birdies… but one little bird that flew past my office recently had a surprisingly large vocabulary and told me of new requirements that will be introduced in the forthcoming 2010 update to the ‘Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities’ (commonly referred to as ‘Guidelines’).
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Guidelines, they are the design requirements that are cited by the Joint Commission and, at last count, 42 of the 50 U.S. State Departments of Health. Technically, they aren’t a building code, but the function in almost the exact same way. For the first time, the Guidelines are going to have specific MRI suite design requirements for patient safety.
External fixation and braces are typically very carefully screened for contraindication for MRI examination, but what may not be as frequently screened is the clothing underneath. 
