Summary:

• This blog summarizes the Implementing Low-field, Point-of-care MR Imaging in Critical Care webinar with Dr. Andrew Baker discussing using the Swoop portable MR brain imaging system at Unity Health Toronto, emphasizing its benefits for critical care and post-neuro-interventional procedures.
• Dr. Baker highlights the logistical challenges and dangers of transporting critically ill patients for MRI scans to distant locations, like conventional MRI suites in hospital basements.
• The Swoop system, situated directly in Unity Health Toronto's ICU unit, eliminates wait times and transport risks, allowing prompt scanning and potentially better patient management.

Andrew Baker, MD, the Chief of Critical Care at Unity Health Toronto - St. Michael’s, recently joined us to discuss his hospital’s early experience with ultra-low-field, point-of-care MRI technology and how it has impacted patients in critical care and post-neuro-interventional procedures. Additionally, Dr. Baker addressed the impact of imaging at the patient’s bedside, neuroradiology’s interpretation of patient scans, and how point-of-care imaging can influence the course of care for critical patients.

In the webinar, Dr. Baker shares, “There are resource limitations, and when we first install MRIs, many of us put them in the basements of buildings. And we are nervous, as intensivists, in taking our patients to remote locations like this. Often our patients are on multiple pressers, which are very sensitive to drip rates and pumps going on and off and changing. Often we're sending sick patients. And if they have refractory intracranial pressure, we lose that feedback loop that is rapid in the ICU for treating that.

“Any transport of a patient through the elevators, which are never big enough, it seems, risks accidental displacement of chest tubes, lines, endotracheal tubes, and so on and so on … So how does point-of-care MRI compare against some of these challenges? Well, really, we have the machine sitting right in our unit. It's right there. And so there really isn't a wait time for it ... I roll it over myself whenever I want to.”

Want to hear more from Dr. Baker? We invite you to view the webinar below and learn about implementing low-field point-of-care MRI in the critical care setting.

This webinar was sponsored by Hyperfine through MTMI.