Use renewed MRI focus to verify your risk reductions

By now, most of you have read The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Alert about MRI safety. The alert, in part, offers advice on how to prevent injuries and deaths to patients and employees within the strong magnetic fields surrounding MRI equipment.

Sentinel Event Alerts aren’t new standards, but The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) wants you to review the alerts and consider their recommendations, as surveyors may ask about them. If you’re not on top of the recommendations, develop a plan to do so or have a wellreasoned alternative, says Elizabeth Di GiacomoGeffers, RN, MPH, CNAA, BC, a healthcare consultant at Di Giacomo-Geffers and Associates in Trabuco Canyon, CA.