The Webinar Wednesday session “MRI Coils: Failure Analysis and Strategies to Minimize Support Costs” was popular with healthcare technology management (HTM) professionals. The webinar offered free registration thanks to a sponsorship from Innovatus Imaging. The webinar was also eligible for 1 credit from the ACI.
Innovatus Imaging Director of Commercial Operations Ted Lucidi, CBET, and team members shared failure analysis data from over 3,600 MRI coil repairs spanning the most popular coil models.
Attendees were presented with root cause analysis data on how specific coil models fail, gained insight into minimizing common failures and learned some quick troubleshooting techniques so that costly repairs can be minimized. The Innovatus Imaging team included experts from its coil operations, and they addressed specific questions presented by attendees during the live webinar. A recording of the webinar is available for on-demand viewing at WebinarWednesday.live.
This session covered an overview of MRI coils, methodology, root cause analysis of top-10 coil models, crunching the numbers, six strategies to minimize failures and costs. Attendees left with valuable knowledge including an understanding of frequent modes of failure, how to determine best practices for troubleshooting coil problems and how to develop a strategy to reduce support costs and downtime.
During the question-and-answer session, one attendee asked if they should worry about coils that are covered under contract?
“That is as a solid, a solid question, because most coils are covered under a service contract integral to the magnet. Sort of like an extended warranty or anything you buy at Best Buy. They want to sell you that extended warranty or service contract,” Lucidi said. “The challenge with those types of coverage is the OEM’s warranties and service contracts typically don’t cover failures due to preventable damage. OEMs will typically exchange that coil with you at no charge upfront. But whenever they get that coil back in their lab or they send it to us for repair and we report that mechanical damage was found the OEMs will typically bill back the customers. And you might not have this visibility at your level.”
“You’d also be surprised to know that a lot of coils contain what’s called a shock sensor,” he added. “So if we open a coil up, there’s a sensor inside that. We can tell if this coil has encountered a drop. And if that shock sensor is thrown, that might be flagged as a billable event on a service contract.”
Other questions included one about cable management and another about the amount of time it takes to make a repair. The complete Q&A is available in the on-demand webinar at WebinarWednesday.live.
Attendees provided feedback via a survey that included the question, “Was today’s presentation worth your time?”
“Yes, early identification of equipment failure is essential to managing maintenance costs,” said David Green, systems designer, Square One Industries, Texas.
“Yes, worth my time. I can refresh my knowledge about the MR coils,” Guery Diaz, CEO, VEMPA, Panama.
More than 2,000 HTM professionals have attended a live Webinar Wednesday session so far in 2022. Find on-demand sessions and upcoming webinars at WebinarWednesday.live.
