Simplified MRI Implant / Device Risk-Assessment

Speaker: Tobias Gilk, MRSO, MRSE

One of the greatest 'speed bumps' in MRI throughput is assessing and clearing patients in whom there are implants or foreign bodies. While this has grown to be one of the biggest patient safety threats in MRI and 'time sucks' in operating a service, it's still quite rare that technologists and radiologists are formally trained in the MRI risk-assessment process.

Too often MRI scanning decisions depends on explicit "green light" indications from manufacturers' labeling. What happens when the labeling is ambiguous? Or if the labeling is clear, but conditions can't be met for the specific study requested? Or if there's no MRI labeling available, at all? How can a site assess the risks or do they just turn patients away on the presumption that the safety is 'unknowable'?

It may not be given to you, but often the 'unknowable' is, in fact, able to be figured out. This presentation will provide all attendees with not only a
description of a process for simplified implant/device risk assessment, you'll get the specific tool! Such a tool can't answer all questions about all possible MRI studies, but it is a significant 'jumping off' point for improvements in MRI safety and patient access.

Learning Objectives: 

• better understand MRI safety labeling and vendor-provided information (which can sometimes create more questions than they answer).
• describe the three electromagnetic fields in MRI, including when and where they live, and what risks they present to the MRI patient.
• use the simplified risk assessment tool, and be provided with a copy of it to take home.

This session qualifies for 1 hour of CE Credit.