JCAHO Sentinel Alert: MRI Accidents & Injuries and Classmate Pick of the Week

Joint Commission Alert Shines Light on Preventing MRI Accidents, Injuries

The article that I choose this week was published by the Joint Commission on the potential for sentinel events associated with MRIs. This was particularly interesting to me since I received an MRI this summer, and I was clueless of the harms. The article mentioned that there are more than 10 million MRIs performed annually; and of those, the FDA has received over 400 complaints in the last decade. This might seem like a small number, but of those, more than 70% of the accidents were burns and 10% were injuries resulting from metal objects such as ink pins, cleaning equipment and oxygen canisters, which act as missiles when drawn in by the magnetic pull of the MRI machine.

It is the caregivers’ duty to obtain a complete history from the patient prior to the MRI to ensure that they can be safely be scanned. When I went in for my MRI, I was given a lengthy form asking anything from did I have implanted devices to if I had any tattoos. The Joint Commission published a list of recommendations in this Sentinel Event Alert to help reduce the risk of MRI injuries. Some of them include: take precautions to prevent patient burning during screening, never run a cardio-pulmonary arrest code or resuscitate a patient in the MRI room, only use fire extinguishers and oxygen tanks that have been approved for use in a MRI room, and use trained screeners to double check the patients for metal objects, implanted or other devices, drug delivery patches or tattoos. The goal of this alert was to bring attention to the risks associated with MRIs to the nation’s health care organizations. Yes, it is their responsibility to make sure the patient is safe. But, I believe that it is also the patient’s responsibility to be aware of the dangers. You cannot always trust that your caregiver is being completely honest with you, as much as we might like too.
http://www.jointcommission.org/NewsRoom/NewsReleases/nr_02_15_08.htm

Classmate Pick of the Week- The Sorry Work! By Netty

This week I choose to read Netty’s article entitled, The Sorry Works! Coalition: Making the Case for Full Disclosure. I completely agree with Netty in that the issues surrounding medical errors needs and should change. It is sad to know that physicians try to act like the victims, when in reality the patient is the victim. It was interesting to learn that there is actually a method for this, the “deny and defend” method. Patients’ come to healthcare facilities trusting that they will be given the best quality treatment. It is discouraging to a patient knowing that their caregivers could make a fatal mistake causing the patient their lives. I think that some legislation should be undertaken to address these issues.