Medical Group Releases MRI Safety Guidelines

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Medical Group Releases MRI Safety Guidelines

Thu Jun 13, 5:32 PM ET

"The group issued the guidelines partly in response to the death of a 6-year-old boy last year during an MRI scan....

Kanal and his team recommend restructuring the MRI department environment. The team proposes that MRI departments be divided into four rooms, which they refer to as zones. The zones would include a patient waiting room (Zone 1), a patient changing/holding area (Zone 2), a control room (Zone 3), and the MRI room (Zone 4).

Access to Zone 3 and 4, the authors state in their report in the June issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, would be restricted to trained MRI personnel. "

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&ncid=751&e=7&u=/nm/20020613/hl_nm/mri_safety_1

[oramar]

If they ban all but MRI techs from zone 3 & 4, who is going to take care of the medically unstable patients? The hospital is going to have to have MRI trained nurses on duty at all times.

[Kikumaru]

Restricting non-mri personnel from these areas raises a good question. What if the patient seizures during the procedure. Will the mri tech know what to do?