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Medically Imaging the Body with Magnetics and Radiofrequency Waves with an MRI

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Introduction Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a way of medically imaging the body with the use of a magnetic field and radiofrequency waves. (1) As image quality of MRI continues to improve, more MRI exams are being ordered. Increasing MRI exams leads to increased wait times. Due to current wait lists, the health status of patients may decrease, influencing the type of treatment the patient will require once removed from the wait list. (7) The advances in technology have increased in the past decade, with MRI procedures are vastly growing to provide superior diagnostic quality compared to other modalities. New technologies are also allowing for faster scan times and further increased image quality. (9) Wait Times: What and Why…show more content…
(6) Although wait times for MRI have decreased across Canada, from 2012 to 2013, by an average of 8.4 weeks to 8.3 weeks, BC patients are waiting the longest, at 16 weeks, for an MRI scan compared to the rest of Canada. (6) Physicians believe Canadian patients are waiting 3 weeks longer to receive treatment following a specialist appointment than what is considered clinically acceptable. (6) Delays could also be due to further investigation or treatments that may be required prior to a specialist referral or specific health care services. (7) Wait times can be increased due to patient needs outside of the health care system. Only 11.1% of patients on the overall health care waiting lists are due to patient requests for delay of postponing of treatment. (6) How to Decrease MRI Wait Times Wait times can be decreased for MRI by increasing the provincial funding for health care systems by the government of Canada. (7) With an increase of funding, more scanners could be purchased, more technologists could be hired to run the scanners, and hospital booking systems may become more efficient. (4, 7) MRI scanners could also be operated for extended hours, allowing the number of scans each day to increase. (4) Wait times could also be decreased by developing a standardized approach for prioritizing exams and patient acuities, determining the urgency level of each patient. (6,4) Current efforts that have been made to decrease the wait times by
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