MRI Facility Safety - Understanding the Risks of Powerful Attraction

Diagnostic imaging professionals who work with MR equipment understand and accept that its enormous power also carries potential risk. What they may not realize, however, is that terrible accidents—like one in Valhalla, N.Y., in 2001 that killed a 6- year-old boy—are not simply flukes attributable to a facility’s momentary negligence. By its very nature, MRI poses three significant threats to operator and patient safety:

• so-called missile effects
• biostimulation device interference; and
• cryogenic gas venting.

The good news is that even long-established MRI sites can usually be retrofitted for safety improvements at a reasonable cost. “Safer doesn’t have to mean more expensive,” says medical facilities architectural designer Tobias Gilk. “In fact, we would argue the opposite.” His employer, Missouri-based Junk Architects, PC, specializes in MRI suite design. Gilk served as project manager for the first MRI installation renovation to conform to the standards laid down in the American College of Radiology’s (ACR) original 2001 White Paper on MR Safety.