Temporary unit will be used during internal upgrades
Bolivar Medical Center has a temporary MRI unit installed while the hospital clears space for a more advanced MRI unit that will be installed over the next year and half. Caitlyn Thompson, Bolivar Medical Center Director of Marketing, Growth & Outreach offered more details on both.
“We’re upgrading our MRI machine and it’s already installed and ready,” said Thompson. “We have actually started seeing patients on the machine. The benefit of this new machine is obviously improved image resolution. The images are sharper and have more clarity for diagnostic accuracy. The scan times are much shorter, so that means the patient doesn’t have to be in the scanner as long.”
The new MRI is more spacious, hopefully making patients more comfortable and helping with any claustrophobic tendencies. The cutting-edge technology of the new MRI also offers a greatly reduced time for each procedure.
“We have what’s called a larger bore size, so basically the MRI machine has a hole in it where the patients are slid into on the board, and so if it’s larger, then it feels a little bit more open and a little bit more comfortable for the patient,” said Thompson.
The temporary unit will be in place for up to two years while the permanent MRI is installed in the hospital. The temporary unit is referred to as a mobile MRI, which simply means it’s in an adjacent building to the hospital and not in a moving vehicle.
“With the mobile machine, patients come into the building, check in, go to the radiology department and then the machine is actually located adjacent to the building,” said Thompson. “While it’s convenient and these images are so much better, in the long run, a brand new permanent MRI unit will be installed in the facility. It just takes a long time to do that, so in the meantime, we want to be able to still accommodate those patients who need an MRI. We didn’t want to have any downtime, and that’s what this mobile MRI unit is there for.”