0:00

One of the things that's really interesting when we consider MRI safety is

0:05

the amount of time spent preventing different types of

0:10

adverse events. A few years ago,

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I did a poll from MRI technologists and asked them

0:18

how much of their time is spent on different adverse

0:23

event types, and these were the results that we got.

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Now what's interesting is if we contrast what

0:31

technologists spend their time on against what types of

0:36

injuries are most prevalent in the FDA database,

0:41

if we cross-reference these two fields,

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we begin to see that there are some pretty significant mismatches

0:49

in terms of the amount of time spent. Now, it's important to note,

0:53

as we discussed a moment ago,

0:56

that implant and device malfunctions very frequently are recorded

1:01

only as adverse events under the implant or device.

1:06

So looking at just adverse events that are classified as

1:11

mri, there's a little bit of a mismatch in the data.

1:15

The thing that I wanna point out with this is that we don't

1:20

really do all that good of a job correlating the

1:25

efforts at the point of care with the accidents and injuries that are actually

1:30

produced now for many reasons,

1:35

having to do with the severity of adverse events.

1:39

We can understand why implants and devices get the lion's

1:44

share of the time spent at the point of care,

1:47

and in terms of prevention of accidents and injuries.

1:52

What I'd like you to take away from this is if we don't actually

1:57

cross-reference the mechanisms of injury

2:02

against the mechanisms of prevention and

2:07

look at frequency and severity of different adverse event types,

2:12

we may be flying blind.

2:14

We may be following practices that were

2:18

handed down to us from predecessors that may not accurately reflect

2:23

an effective way to manage risk.

2:27

So I want you to think about time spent.

2:31

I want you to think about policies that are written and

2:37

contrast those with the frequency of different types of patient

2:41

injury in mri and just make sure that you are actually putting

2:46

your efforts and your time and your energy towards the things that are

2:51

going to have the greatest impacts in reducing adverse events and

2:56

patient injury. One of the reasons

2:59

That MRI safety often gets pushed to the back burner

3:05

is this notion that improvements in MRI safety only

3:09

come at the expense of productivity or throughput.

3:14

In fact, reality is almost 180 degrees opposite from that,

3:20

apart from patients simply not showing up for their studies or not showing up

3:25

on time for their studies.

3:27

The single greatest drag on throughput and productivity is

3:33

MRI studies in which the patient comes with a surprise

3:38

complication or contraindication,

3:40

and we then have to spend minutes, hours, sometimes days,

3:46

researching that surprise contraindication to try and identify whether or

3:51

not that patient can be safely scanned end.

3:55

If we more effectively manage MRI safety,

4:00

we can more effectively manage the number one source of

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delayed or denied MRI exams,

4:08

thereby increasing productivity.

4:11

How much time does a technologist radiographer

4:16

spend on implants and devices? Again,

4:19

this was a poll that was conducted amongst radiographers technologists,

4:24

and on average in a given work week,

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let's presume 40 hour work week,

4:31

the average technologist probably spends somewhere between five and six hours

4:36

per week looking up implants, devices,

4:40

spending time on the clock doing things other than

4:45

scanning the patient. Now,

4:47

at academic medical centers where we have more complex patients,

4:52

that number can actually grow to 10 hours per week.

4:57

So if we look at the average of about five and a half hours per

5:02

week per technologist,

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that's a about 14% full-time equivalent.

5:10

So 14% of the wages or salaries paid to

5:14

your mri technologists are going towards implant and

5:19

device lookups specifically. Now,

5:23

if we can do a better job of managing those patients,

5:28

if we can be more effective and efficient in reviewing and clearing those

5:33

patients, that's 14% labor cost right there.

5:37

That might get cut in half,

5:40

perhaps even more if we have better processes, better policies,

5:46

procedures,

5:46

and more effectively trained M R I technologists at the point of care.