MRI Magnet Delivery - Full Service
Preplanning for the Scheduling, Delivery, and Site Placement of your New MRI Magnet - Module #14
The Copper-shifted MRI exam suite will be tested to ensure the suite buildout does not allow external EMI interference with your MRI images.
Preplanning for your MRI Magnet Delivery is critical to the success of the actual delivery day for your MRI Imaging Center. We know from experience that many essential items, small and large, must be well planned, at least three months or longer, and coordinated carefully. Indeed, the devil is in the details.
We can alleviate your concerns and fears and assist you with all the critical details involved in the preplanning, coordinating, and placing of your MRI magnet for your MRI imaging center. Very few managers and physician clients have the time to plan everything necessary.
Your MRI Magnet Delivery should be a well-choreographed event with experienced planning; experienced consultants can make that happen!
Setting a Date for your MRI Supplier Delivery
Preplanning MRI Magnet begins with the information you receive from your supplier. You will need the date range within which they believe they can deliver your Magnet. The client Magnet approved and revised that data when necessary.
Necessary Construction Teamwork Before MRI Magnet Delivery
On a parallel path, the building contractor should have collaborated with you early in construction. The MRI Magnet delivery date will need to be coordinated perfectly, with the date on which the builder Contractor has indicated they are on track to complete the buildout of your complex MRI Magnet room suite, equipment, and control rooms, essentially completed at the time of MRI Magnet Delivery. With your overall completion of the MRI Imaging Center building, the center "Go Live" will be proximately five to six weeks after the initial delivery of your MRI Magnet.
Those final five to six weeks are required to button up the MRI delivery room wall, repair the RF shield, complete the assembly and buildout of the MRI Magnet by the MRI supplier field engineers, and complete the testing protocols.
Remember your initial magnet delivery should ideally occur about 5-6 weeks before your full MRI Imaging Center is completed. You will need to coordinate this date for delivery of your MRI Magnet. However, you cannot receive the MRI Magnet without a number of items and conditions being in place when the MRI Magnet arrives. You need full power to the MRI suite and control and equipment rooms, with water, temperature, and humidity controls (HVAC) fully operational and a hard telephone line connected and operational in the equipment room. You will want the Magnet Room, Control Room, and Equipment Room to have locked and limited key access, coordinated by your MRI technologist team leader/manager. Rooms must be painted, walls, ceilings, and floors intact, and rooms clean and ready for use. Your MRI magnet room safety and access signage will need to be in place, and access limitations and protocols must be prepared to be followed.
Heavy Lift Crane MRI Placement Assistance
For the delivery of your standard 1.5 Tesla MRI unit (12,000 pounds-13,000 pounds,) you will need the services of and will need to contact a Heavy Lift Crane Company that routinely works in the area of the country where your MRI Imaging Center site is located.
Their scheduling will require a call well in advance (3 to 5 Months) to ensure they will be available when you need them.
You can discuss with them what is required, but usually, an 80,000 to 100,000-pound heavy lift crane is the crane type that will be necessary (unless you are installing a minor extremity-only MRI unit). When you contact the Heavy Lift Crane company, they will want to visit your MRI Imaging Center site with a team member to review what the crane and crew must deal with to bring the Magnet into your MRI room.
In your MRI Magnet Room, you will have previously identified the removable and rebuildable exterior "KnockOut wall with a minimum opening of 9 x 9 feet for the initial delivery of the MRI Magnet. That is a standard knock out wall opening with most MRI units, however of course, relative to your specific MRI unit, it will be import to confirm the wall opening dimensions with your specific MRI Magnet vendor. Except for a tiny portion of the knockout wall of your MRI Magnet room, the RF Shield for the room will have been completed, and the room will need to have been well cleaned and without dust when the MRI is brought into the room. The Heavy Lift Crane specialists reviewing your site will carefully look at your parking lot and campus areas to see where the MRI Delivery Semitrailer truck can be brought into the area and parked for the off-loading of the MRI Magnet. In preparation for the delivery of your MRI Magnet, the Crane specialists, when reviewing your MRI Imaging Center, will look at other nearby buildings, walls, trees, and overhead power lines that might impede the boom swing of the Heavy Lift Crane.
They will examine whether your building has an overhanging porch before the Knockout Wall entry portal. That can be accommodated to the immediate front of the overhead porch or portico, should be an area of mostly level and vacant; dirt, cement, asphalt, grass, or gravel on which a large, heavy gauge steel plate can be placed, and on which the MRI Magnet, will be set down by the crane on to a set of hydraulic rolling jacks.
Highly skilled workers known as Millwrights will help move the MRI very slowly into the MRI imaging suite or magnet room using these rolling hydraulic jacks.
Site Prep for the Heavy Lift Crane MRI Placement
The Heavy Lift Crane representative will inform you how and where they want you to cordon off the parking lot on the day of delivery. They will help determine what parking will not be available and what areas need to be closed to foot traffic. You will have the time frame for the parking area closures. From experience, you should count on half a day, usually the morning, to complete the delivery and placement of the MRI Magnet into your MRI Imaging Center, Magnet Room Suite.
The Heavy Lift Crane company team members are highly professional individuals. After the initial predelivery meeting with them, they will give you a solid cost estimate, which, in my experience, has always been accurate and consistent with the services to be rendered. The Heavy Lift Crane Crew team leader will provide you with their cell phone number and will keep in touch with you or your consultant representative before and during their transit to your site. You will want to ensure that you have responded to any site work that needs to be done before the morning of the MRI delivery. Their requests are usually simple, but there are no guarantees, and they can be such things as snow removal in key areas, like the MRI landing area.
Delivery Coordination with the MRI Supplier
The MRI Magnet unit will be delivered by Semitrailer truck to your site. As it gets closer to the actual delivery date and no less than two days before, you will want the MRI Vendor to provide you or your consultant representative with the exact name and cell phone number of the individual driver who will be driving across the country to make the delivery of your MRI. I can tell you this makes the difference in your delivery being coordinated with less chance of unhappy mistakes and expensive delays. Find out from your MRI supplier where in the country the MRI Magnet will be loaded on the Semitrailer truck and dispatched to arrive at your MRI Imaging Center site location. Find out if the shipping company has shipped these MRI units before, as they usually are contractors to the MRI Vendor Suppliers. Ask the MRI supplier to identify how many days the shipper will need to drive their rig and your MRI Magnet to your location. Ask them to find a driver familiar with this delivery process and highways to your location where possible. If your site is remote, ensure they understand the pluses and minuses of the route they intend to take. Ensure they are prepared to park their rig and your loaded MRI unit close to your building the evening or afternoon before the installation occurs, which should be the following day. You will want to confirm the weight of your MRI unit with the MRI supplier, which will need to be provided to the Heavy Lift Crane team.
Preparing the Building Tenants and Employees for the MRI Delivery
You will want to plan to let employees, other tenants in your building, and any others know what will be happening at your building on the afternoon before the placement of the MRI when the truck is bringing tMagnetnet from the supply magnets nearby. You will also want to inform them of the events the following morning when the crane is on-site and the MRI Magnet is brought into your MRI exam suite. You will need to let them know the areas available for parking, what areas are cordoned off (orange cones, yellow tape), and what areas are available and not available for foot traffic.
Our group will generally provide a site plan with key information for the client, their staff, and others in the building as needed.
Plan on checking in a few days before site delivery with the Semitrailer Truck driver, who will deliver your MRI Magnet, and the Crane foreman to ensure everything is on track for delivery day.
Suppose the building housing your MRI site is in an active Office Building. In that case, it will be essential for other offices, managers, and businesses in the building to be notified some days in advance of the activity that will be taking place at your building and the shared campus. You will want to inform them of the entrance and exit areas for active patients, their families, all employees, and visitors to the site. Safety first and foremost for everyone. No unpleasant surprises for anyone.
If you are developing or building an MRI Imaging Center, think hard and long about the planning and delivery day for your MRI magnet. Again, not much can go wrong, and everything needs to go well. With our project consultation and assistance, the day of the delivery of the MRI Magnet in your MRI Imaging Center can be a safe, exciting, and precise event that will set the stage for the successful implementation of your MRI Imaging Center.
We can manage the complete process for you and ensure your MRI Magnet arrives safely and uneventfully!
Six weeks until the MRI "Go Live," still work to be done.
After placing the MRI Magnet in your MRI suite, some additional equipment drops will be made that day of initial Magnet Delivery and in the two weeks following that delivery. For the next four to six weeks until "Go Live," your MRI Magnet will be clucking away and plugged in in a semi-dormant state until additional Helium fueling and the process of final assembly occurs.
Your MRI unit will be connected by a dedicated phone line to the parent MRI vendor company for the beginning of its life of remote system monitoring. Entry to that Magnet room will now be locked and restricted to some builders, electricians, other specialists, and your lead MRI Technologist, who should now be in charge of the Magnet room. The Four Zone Safety Demarcations for your MRI in your building must be implemented, with quality signage, safeguards, and instructions for all.
In this Module, we address:
*Where are you in the MRI process at present?
*Are you looking at a ground-floor, slab-on-grade, second-floor or higher installation?
*Are you considering installing an extremity MRI Magnet, a 1.5 Tesla or smallMagnetnet, or a 3.0 Tesla Magnet?
*A complete checklist (More than what I have referenced in the content above) of all that needs to be addressed in planning the delivery of your MRI Magnet will be provided.
*Working with your building Contractor from early in the construction process to track and continually update the necessary MRI milestones to be expected on the monthly OAC construction meeting agenda, so it presents no surprise but provides continual notifications to the various subcontractors that have task requirements to complete along the way (That we will identify) and that need to be worked on constantly, and in place by the time of the MRI delivery.
*Strong communications with your MRI vendor will ensure you have been and will be made aware of all the customer responsibilities in preparing the MRI Magnet room and responding to site readiness. Discuss the Vendor site readiness checklist. Work closely with your MRI Vendor Project Manager to ensure you are on the same page. Confirm your MRI magnet is being built or completed, and confirm that it was set aside for delivery on the date they indicated it would be available and sent out to you for delivery.
*Confirm site readiness checklist requirements with your Architect and Building Contractor.
*Receive contact information and information about retaining and working with a key Heavy-Lift Crane Company.
*Review of the Heavy Lift Crane company site visit and what they will want to see in customer readiness for the MRI Magnet "Lift Day" and confirm how their fees are derived.
*Preparing for possible lift day challenges.
*What does your site look like regarding possible lift and boom swing challenges (proximity to retaining walls, for example ), other buildings, trees, ditches, streams, water, uneven terrain, etc.?
*Does your site experience challenging seasonal weather events?
*We will be prepared to answer all questions that you might have regarding this arrangement.
*If you want us to provide a proposal for taking this project portion entirely on your behalf and to your satisfaction, we can work with you on that quote. We can send you images from previous projects of the various steps with various customers regarding this process
Delivery/Ramp Up – Full Service – 18