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Helium concerns continue to weigh heavy on MRI

by Diana Bradley, Staff Writer | September 14, 2012
From the September 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


“It’s like trying to conserve gas or electricity; it’s figuring out what you have to do to minimize the loss of helium,” says Siemens’ Joyner.

The U.S. helium shortage has already hit MRI owners who have chosen to operate without a maintenance contract, according to Wayne Scott, vice president of magnet operations at Medallion Magnet Services.

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“The days of waiting to replace a cold-head once it fails may be over,” he explains. “With a limited supply of liquid helium, MRI owners will need to maintain their cold-head, compressor and chillers to reduce unnecessary helium boil-off. Due to the helium shortage, we are unable to take on new accounts. That’s causing the service business to suffer.”

If an MRI system is not under an OEM or third party service contract, the end user is really taking a gamble, according to Nathan Welch, CT and MR specialist at Amber Diagnostics.

“If you are self-insuring your scanner, you need to be aware that it may take a while for you to receive helium,” he says. “If you are operating with an older magnet that has a higher helium loss, make sure your PMs are performed in accordance with the OEM, including your coldhead and absorber.”

In the long-term, as more companies actually look into how much they are spending on helium, they will reduce their consumption through better magnet maintenance, according to Baldwin.

“We can help them do that through proactive maintenance agreements, remote monitoring and other methods,” Baldwin says.

To further protect customers, risk management will need to include helium in future plans and one outcome of that will be the sale of improved MRIs, according to Toshiba’s Silcock.

“The whole value proposition would need to include the impact of helium supply in regard to downtime and risk,” he says. “Zero boil-off magnets will reduce the need for helium baring any other issues such as power disruption or chiller issues.”

New technology and potential helium alternatives
PMs and contracts aside, even the most prepared and protected hospital can have an unprecedented loss. For instance, most modern hospitals own high-field super-conducting MRI systems, like the University of Tennessee (UT) Medical Center, which has four, each filled with approximately 200 liters of liquid helium. These MRI systems are considered “zero-loss”, so barring any unusual event, there is very little loss of the helium due to efficient recapture methods incorporated into the scanner, according to Dr. Alexander Pasciak, assistant professor and medical physicist at the UT Medical Center’s department of radiology.

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