Designing and Engineering MRI Safety

For health care facility planners, designers and engineers, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) safety has historically been a non-issue, relegated to the domain of the MRI equipment vendor and then the clinical staff. A series of recent publications, however, have shone a new light on the role of the facility planners and designers in safety of MRI procedures.

In 2007, the American College of Radiology (ACR) published the ACR Guidance Document for Safe MR Practices: 2007, a rewrite of the previously released editions of the White Paper on MR Safety. The new Guidance Document included, for the first time, an entire appendix dedicated to the design principles for safe MRI suite composition specifically intended to consolidate and promote MR safety design tactics for medical planners.