“Hello Orlando!”
“Hello Orlando!”
No, there’s not an echo in this posting. I’m simply rehearsing for two nearly-back-to-back presentations on MRI safety issues to different groups, both in Orlando, Florida, in the weeks ahead.
Posts Tagged ‘patient’
Two Upcoming MRI Safety Presentations
Saturday, October 10th, 2009The Boy Who Cried “Trial”!
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009Yes, I think I’ve written at least twice before about the imminent start of the trial for the civil lawsuit stemming from the Michael Colombini fatal MRI accident in 2001. And, yes, I was wrong both times before. So, I would expect nothing less than readers of this entry to take my 3rd prognostication of the start of the trial with something more than a grain of salt… perhaps an entire salt lick! But today a little birdie told me that there’s a hole in the otherwise-booked New York Supreme Court trial schedule for late October / early November and the Colombini trial may just fit right in there.
The Bad Economy Causes MRI Accidents
Friday, September 11th, 2009OK, our yearlong economic near-catastrophe has had far-reaching effects and is a ready-made excuse for all sorts of evils in the world.
wife: “Honey, why didn’t you vacuum the living room like I asked?”
husband: “Well, in this time of economic uncertainty, I felt that it would be unwise to both use more electricity for something as superfluous as vacuuming, as well as hasten the demise of our vacuum by using it before it was absolutely necessary…”
But, in fact, economic conditions do have the outward appearances of being a contributing factor in increasing rates of MRI accidents. Click Here To Read How…
RT-Image’s August 3 Issue on MRI Safety
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009RT-Image brought a stack of their August 3rd issue to the AHRA and handed them out at the MRI safety presentation. Why (apart from general publicity)? Because the primary thrust of the issue was on many aspects of MRI safety. This issue has feature articles on the new MR Conditional pacemaker, infection control in the MRI suite, and even one that I wrote for them…
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…
JCAHO and MRI Safety… Are They Serious?
Thursday, January 1st, 2009As you may be aware, the Joint Commission has historically offered nothing in the way of MRI-specific safety standards. MRI may be the only service at an accredited provider that had not even one specific JCAHO standard for patient safety. Yes, all of the broader patient safety standards apply to MRI as they do to the rest of the provider, but with so many unique risks, wouldn’t you think that they would have at least one MRI-specific safety standard?
Click to read more about Joint Commission, MRI safety, and the Environment of Care…
MRI Truth Is Sometimes Stranger Than MRI Fiction
Friday, December 12th, 2008I have a serial weakness for medical dramas. I get sucked-in and watch for a couple of seasons before the absurdity catches up with me. With respect to MRI, it seems that 99% of the time the shows are so wildly off-base that it seems that each must outdo its own crazy scenarios (and those of the other medical dramas) to come up with a new MRI-related plot gimmick.
But then, typically after I’ve lost all hope of seeing anything that approaches reality, something plausible and even downright real is shown on one of these programs…
More Than Just A Pretty Face…
Thursday, November 13th, 2008How I long to be judged for my content… my substance… and not just how I look!
No, not me, the author, but the figurative ‘me‘, this blog…
I don’t know if you’ve ever used them, but all of the major internet search engines have tools that you can use to find images that match your search criteria. Every so often there’s a new paparazzi picture of some starlet in mid-wardrobe-malfunction or a politician with a facial expression that looks like they just smelled something awful that become the ‘it’ picture of the day.
Well, based on the number of hits our blog has been getting recently, and the image search tools that many of these hits are coming from, apparently we have a lesser ‘it’ picture, and it has nothing to do with politics or racy nudity…
It’s a picture of an ICU bed stuck to the face of an MRI.
Pictures of things stuck to magnets often generate wide-eyed looks, even laughter. After all, the juxtaposition can be pretty silly. But each of these pictures is only possible because of horrible mishaps that can each result in serious injury, or even fatality.
We encourage people to find and view these pictures, not to have a larger number of viewers snicker at them. We put them up to help deflate the ‘that could never happen here’ mythology that is dangerous. If you can see magnets, floor polishers, oxygen cylinders, wheelchairs or, as above, ICU beds that look like ones in use at the hospital or imaging center, then maybe the internal monologue becomes something more like, ‘what would have to happen here for us to have a similar accident?’
Most importantly, we hope that all of these efforts work to motivate Technologists, Radiographers, Imaging Managers, Radiologists, Risk-Managers and Compliance Officers to imagine which steps they could take at their locations to reduce the likelihood of these sorts of accidents.
There are many steps that can be taken to help improve the effectiveness of pre-screening for magnet hazards. One of the most obvious is also one of the easiest, the use of ferromagnetic detectors.
We encourage you to view and share the information contained on these pages and we hope that each of these resources, even the racy pictures of MRI missile accidents, help shape improvements to MRI safety at your facilities.
After all, I’m lot more than just a pretty face…
Tobias Gilk, President & MRI Safety Director Mednovus, Inc. Tobias.Gilk@Mednovus.com www.MEDNOVUS.com