Last month, the judge in the Michael Colombini lawsuit (the case resulting from the infamous death by oxygen tank / cylinder brought into the MRI room while the boy was in the scanner) decided on three of the last outstanding pre-trial motions. The Judge’s decisions appear to have excused one defendant, entirely, and tempered the degree of potential liability for others.
Posts Tagged ‘metal’
Colombini Case – Lawsuit Machinations
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009Tags: colombini, court, death, fatality, ferromagnetic, injury, lawsuit, legal, liability, magnet, magnetic resonance, metal, missile, MRI, New York, patient, projectile, radiologist, radiology, risk, safety, suit, Technologist, trial, Westchester
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety, Other MRI Safety | 10 Comments »
FMD. Don’t We Have Screening Protocols For That?
Friday, May 22nd, 2009One of the most oft-cited rationalizations for not complying with contemporary best practices that call for using ferromagnetic detection (FMD) for MRI pre-screening is that ‘FMD doesn’t catch anything that existing screening protocols aren’t meant to catch.’ What you may find surprising about this statement is that I agree with it wholeheartedly… I would just change the inflection a bit. I would say it more like…
Ferromagnetic detection doesn’t catch anything that existing screening protocols aren’t meant to catch.
That inflection makes a world of difference, as you’ll see in just a moment…
Tags: accident, care, detection, detector, fatality, ferromagnetic, hazard, injury, magnet, magnetic resonance, metal, missile, MR, MRI, patient, photo, picture, projectile, risk, safety, screening, standard, Technologist, translational, video
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | 2 Comments »
Is Ferromagnetic (Ferrous) Detection Cost Effective?
Friday, May 22nd, 2009In a word, ‘Yes,’ but not by the conventional ways that imaging providers are accustomed to...
Would using ferromagnetic detection (FMD), to add a new and effective layer of pre-MRI screening, be reimbursed? What I mean is, is there a CPT code to get paid back for providing this additional service?
No, but the lack of a CPT code has little to do with the fact that using FMD can contribute, directly, to an MRI provider’s bottom-line. In fact, there are two concrete ways, off of the top of my head, that I know have provided financial ‘payback’ to users of ferromagnetic detection systems.
Tags: accident, cost, CPT, detection, detector, ferromagnetic, ferrous, investment, magnet, magnetic, metal, MRI, projectile, reimbursement, revenue, risk, ROI, safety, screening
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | 1 Comment »
5 Phases Of Ferromagnetic Detection Acceptance
Friday, May 1st, 2009Ferromagnetic detection for pre-MRI screening is disruptive. Not that it slows down your patient throughput (it doesn’t), or that it makes imaging problematic (it doesn’t do that, either), but it does provide an entirely new type of feedback that MR staff and Technologists have never had before. It tells us whether subjects are actually listening to the self-screening instructions we’ve been giving for years. These instruments, more precisely the feedback that they provide, does take a little getting used to. The introduction of ferromagnetic detection is often met with 5 steps towards acceptance…
Click Here To Learn The 5 Phases. C’mon. I Know You Want To…
Tags: accept, accident, detection, detector, ferromagnetic, imaging, magnet, magnetic, metal, MRI, radiology, risk, SAFESCAN, safety, screening, Technologist
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | No Comments »
Why It’s Important To Find Metal Before MRI
Saturday, April 25th, 2009A few weeks ago I posted my layperson’s summary of why there’s even an issue with metal and MRI (click here to read that post on MRI and Metal). In this posting, I hope to explain why it’s so critical to find metals, particularly ferromagnetic metals, being carried by people or inside objects.
Tags: artifact, damage, death, detect, ferromagnetic, hazard, injury, interference, magnet, magnetic resonance, metal, missile, MRI, non-ionizing, projectile, protocol, RF, risk, rotation, torque, translational
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | 2 Comments »
Of Nails, Noses, MRIs And Ferromagnetic Detection
Friday, April 3rd, 2009A very common question asked about ferromagnetic detection systems is, “will it find __________ [insert the object of your choice: pacemaker, cell phone, pocket knife, intra-orbital fragments...]?” Funny, but in the hundreds, if not thousands, of times that question has been posed to me, never once has it been, “will it find a nail I stuck in my nose 30 years ago?”
Tags: detect, ferromagnetic, foreign body, magnet, metal, MRI, nail, news, nose, story, television
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety, Other MRI Safety | No Comments »
MRI And Metal
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009Many people just learning about MRI safety and hazards ask very similar questions. One of most frequent is, “why do I have to remove all metal before an MRI,” or it’s corollary, “can I get an MRI with some metal on (or in) me?” To answer these questions, let’s start at the very beginning…
Tags: ACR, aluminum, cobalt, danger, detect, detector, ferromagnetic, ferrous, hazard, iron, JCAHO, Joint Commission, magnetic, metal, MRI, nickel, pacemaker, pre-screen, projectile, risk, safe, screening, stainless, steel, VA, Veterans Affairs
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety, Other MRI Safety | 4 Comments »
The FDA, Medication Patches, and MRI Safety
Saturday, March 7th, 2009‘NEWS FLASH: Large icebergs may present grave hazards to ocean liners.’
No, that’s not what the FDA just said, but the news in the FDA’s most recent alert is almost as dated as my hyperbolic example. What the FDA did in their March 5th alert on the MRI safety of transdermal medication patches was essentially … Click to find out what the FDA’s alert ‘essentially’ did…
Tags: ACR, alert, burn, drug-delivery, FDA, foil, hazard, heating, magnetic, medication, metal, MRI, patch, safety, transdermal
Posted in Other MRI Safety | No Comments »
“Pardon me, but could you spare $43,172?”
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009No, this isn’t about federal banking bail-outs or corporate welfare. This is the cost, in real-world dollars, of an average single MRI projectile accident in the VA Healthcare system.
Click to read more about the costs of MRI missile accidents…
Tags: accident, cost, detector, expense, fatality, ferromagnetic, force, injury, magnetic, Mednovus, metal, missile, MRI, projectile, resonance, risk, ROI, safety, translational
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | No Comments »
27.5 Million People DON’T Want Their 175% Raise!
Wednesday, November 19th, 200827.5 million people… That’s how many people the healthcare market research company IMV estimates received MR exams in the US in 2007. Other estimates put the number over 30 million, but regardless of whichever number you use, we’re talking about a lot of people (27.5 million is roughly equivalent to those living inside all of the 13 most populous cities in the US)!
And when I say that these millions of people don’t want the 175% raise they’ve received, I’m not referring to their salary. No, the raise that these millions of people got — and most definitely don’t want — is … Click To Learn What 175% Raise They Got…
Tags: accident, detection, detector, FDA, ferromagnetic, magnetic, MAUDE, metal, missile, MRI, policy, pre-screening, procedure, projectile, protocol, safety, screening
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | 2 Comments »