Emerging Insights and Perspectives on Remote MRI Safety: An Interview with Emanuel Kanal, MD

When Emanuel Kanal, M.D., and colleagues formed a committee of the American Board of Magnetic Resonance Safety to address the increasing interest in remote magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning and associated safety protocols, they interviewed hundreds of MRI techs and more than 30 MRI supervisors.

They identified a consensus list of 22 expected line items of responsibility for MRI techs, noted Dr. Kanal in a recent interview with Diagnostic Imaging at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) conference.

While some may express concern about the safety of having a remote MRI tech off-site, Dr. Kanal emphasized that dividing up those 22 line items of responsibility between a remote MRI tech and an on-site tech significantly enhances safety.

“For the first time, all of your vast knowledge (and) years of experience are focused on this patient, not the emergency phone call, not the interruptions, not everything else you've been asked to do as part of your job. Now you have somebody else to share (these duties) objectively on paper … . We have more, not fewer, humans assigned to overseeing, specifically the safety of this patient, now than we ever had before when you were scanning them one on one,” maintained Dr. Kanal, a neurologist and director of MR services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

(Editor’s note: For additional coverage of the RSNA conference, click here.)

Dr. Kanal said the expanded reach of remote MRI scanning also has implications for improving health equity.

“It enables somebody who is in an underserved area from not only having access to a technologist for the first time that knows what she's doing and has expertise in his area, it may be that that same individual needs a fetal MR can or a cardiac MR scan, or some area of expertise, and the closest technologist that can execute that may be a three-and-a half-hour drive away, if that,” pointed out Dr. Kanal. “Now, in a sense, you're democratizing access to this talent. You don't have to be living in the middle of a major metropolitan area to be able to have unbelievably talented, experienced technologists at your disposal.”

Dr. Kanal emphasized that consistently applied safety-driven protocols are key to making remote MRI scanning successful.

“Put all the safeties, all the standardizations, all the buffers (in), everything we need to do it right. Let's do it right the first time. Then unleash remote MR scanning with all those safety profiles in place (and) ensure that the standardization of those practices is prospectively defined … ,” emphasized Dr. Kanal, the founder of the American Board of Magnetic Resonance Safety. “Knowing safety has not only been a part of this, (but it has also) driven how we're going to execute remote MR scanning into our collective futures.”

(Editor’s note: For related content, see “The Reading Room Podcast” A Closer Look at Remote MRI Safety,” “Is MRI Assessment of Right Ventricular Global Longitudinal Strain Prognostic for Heart Failure?” and “Emerging MRI Research Suggests Link Between Muscle Mass, Belly Fat and Brain Aging.”)

For more insights from Dr. Kanal, watch the video below.