In February of 2008, it was announced that in early 2009, Joint Commission accredited health care providers must perform MRI risk analyses based on the Sentinel Event Alert, "MRI Accidents and Injuries."

Tobias Gilk, President and MRI Safety Director of Mednovus, will lead a teleconference on these new requirements and expectations for accredited MRI providers on February 19th hosted by Joint Commission Resources, the educational arm of the Joint Commission. The presentation will reveal the compliance requirements for MRI safety under the new Environment of Care (EC) standard.

To date, the Joint Commission has had no specific MRI safety standards. The EC standard, however, references all of the Joint Commission's prior Sentinel Event Alerts, the organization's highest safety warning.
In February of 2008, the Joint Commission released Sentinel Event Alert #38 on 'MRI Accidents and Injuries.' Now, for the first time, Joint Commission accredited MRI providers will need to perform risk analyses using, as a minimum, the 2008 MRI alert.

To help accredited MRI providers with the new expectations, Joint Commission Resources is offering an audio conference on the specific application of the EC standard on MRI safety.

Gilk, who serves on the American College of Radiology's MRI Safety Committee and has produced well over 100 combined articles and presentations on MRI safety topics will provide an overview of the new requirements.

Among the points to be discussed will be:

* Does the EC standard apply to all Joint Commission accredited MRI providers?
* What are the obligations under the new standard?
* What constitutes a risk analysis?
* What reference standards should be considered?
* Is the analysis the end of the obligation?

"These new requirements are a particular challenge to MRI and radiology administrators," offers Gilk, "because there have never previously been Joint Commission MRI safety requirements, and many radiology staffers have never had to directly address the other components of the Environment of Care standards. In effect, this is a 'back door' MRI safety standard, but a standard none the less. Accredited MRI providers need to be aware and prepared for their next [Joint Commission] survey."

As the foundation for the Joint Commission accredited provider requirements for MRI safety, the upcoming audio conference will focus specifically on the Sentinel Event Alert #38 and correlate its 10 explicit (and three implicit) objectives to the predicate ACR Guidance Document for Safe MR Practices.

Further information on the audio conference, including registration options, is available from the Joint Commission Resources website
(http://www.jcrinc.com/Audio-Conferences/MRI-Safety-Environment-of-Care/1590/).

The Joint Commission is the largest accrediting agency for health care providers dedicated to the improvement of safety and quality of health care.

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