Improvements within patient experience during MRI

Abstract: MRI is one of the biggest and most growing imaging techniques. Even though itis one of the most harmless technologies a big portion of the patients experienceanxiety during the exam. By improving the patient experience unnecessary psychologicalstress for the patient can be prevented, the patient movement wouldthen decrease and therefore the imaging can be improved without changing thetechnique. Participant observations at four dierent MRI departments werecompleted with six interviews with radiographers and technical MRI personnelin order to get insight in the work around an MRI exam and the problemsthat patients experience. The data collection resulted in three improvementareas: the atmosphere of the waiting room, the atmosphere of the MRI roomand the headset used by the patient during the MRI exam. These improvementareas were paired up with solution suggestions which were then controlled andcommented by one MRI specialist, one MRI developer and one radiographer tovalidate the suggestions. The conclusion was that there is already much doneto improve the environment in the MRI room, even though more can be done.The waiting room, on the other hand ,has not been an object for studies orfor improvements before. Therefore more calculation about how big of a protit could be, to improving the atmosphere in the waiting room, should be doneso one knows how much resources one can be put into that improvement area.Lastly there are potential solutions for how to create a much better headset butbecause the generated solutions in this area are so technically challenging moreresearch has to be done before it can be realised.