Magnet Delivery - Full Service

Pre-Planning for the Scheduling, Delivery and Site Placement of your MRI Magnet - Module #14

Pre-Planning for your MRI Delivery is critical to the success of the actual MRI Magnet delivery day for your MRI Imaging Center. We know from experience, a significant number of important items, small and large, need to be well planned in advance, at least three months in advance or longer, and coordinated carefully. Truly the devil is in the details on this one.

We can alleviate your concerns and fears and assist you with all the many critical details, in the Preplanning, Coordination, Delivery and Placement of your MRI Magnet for your MRI Imaging Center. Very few managers and physician clients have the time to plan for all that is necessary.

Your MRI Magnet Delivery should be a well-choreographed event, and experienced planning, and experienced consultants, can make that happen!

Setting a Date for your MRI Supplier Delivery

Preplanning your MRI Magnet delivery date begins with the information received from your MRI Magnet supplier. You will need the date range in which they believe they can provide delivery of your magnet. That date must be approved and when needed, revised by the client.

Necessary Construction Teamwork prior to MRI Magnet Delivery

On a parallel path, the Building Contractor should have been collaborating with you on this from early on in the construction process. The MRI Magnet delivery date will need to be coordinated perfectly, with the date in 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 time of MRI Magnet Delivery. With your overall MRI Imaging Center building completion, and center “Go Live”,  approximately five to six weeks after the initial delivery of your MRI Magnet. Those final five to six weeks are required to button up your MRI delivery room wall, repair the RF shield, complete the assembly and build out of your MRI Magnet by the MRI supplier field engineers, and complete 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. You cannot receive the MRI Magnet however 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) being fully operational , 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 will need to be painted, walls, ceilings and floors intact, rooms clean and ready for use. Your MRI magnet room safety and access signage will need to be in place, and access limitations and protocol ready 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 who routinely works in the area of the country in which 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 on the dates that you will need them. You can discuss with them what is needed, but normally an 80,000 to 100,000 pound heavy lift crane is the crane type that will be required, (unless you are installing a smaller extremity only  MRI unit). When you contact the Heavy Lift Crane company, they will want to visit your MRI Imaging Center site in advance with a member of their team to review what the crane “ lift” will look like to bring the Magnet into your MRI Magnet room.

In your MRI Magnet Room, you will have previously identified the removable and rebuildable exterior “Knock Out 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. With the exception of a very small portion of the Knock out Wall for 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 be carefully looking 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 be looking at other nearby buildings, walls, trees and overhead power lines that might impede the boom swing of the Heavy Lift Crane. They will be looking at whether your building has an overhanging porch in front of the Knock out Wall entry portal. That can be accommodated, however 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. With the help of highly skilled workers, known as Millwrights, these rolling hydraulic jacks will very slowly, be used to move the MRI into the MRI Imaging Suite, or Magnet Room,

Site Prep for the Heavy Lift Crane MRI Placement

The Heavy Lift Crane representative will let you know in advance, how and where they want you to cordon off the parking lot on the day of delivery. They will help to determine what amount of parking is not going to be available, and what areas need to be closed to foot traffic as well. You will have the time frame for the parking area closures. From experience you should count on half a day, normally 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 has always in my experience, been accurate and consistent with the services to be rendered. The team leader for the Heavy Lift Crane Crew 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 make sure that you have responded to any site work that needed to be done in advance of the morning of the MRI delivery. Their requests are normally simple, but no guarantees, and 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 itself, 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 to you or your consultant representative, the actual name and cell phone number for 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 from , to arrive at your MRI Imaging Center site location. Find out if the shipping company has shipped these MRI units before, as they are normally 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. Where possible, ask them to find a driver with familiarity with this delivery process and highways to your location. If your site is in a remote location, make sure they understand the pluses and minuses of the route they intend to take. Make sure 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 very next morning. You will want to confirm with the MRI supplier, the weight of your MRI unit,  which in turn 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 bringing the Magnet from the supplier, parks nearby. And you will also want to let them know of the events the following morning when the crane is on site and bringing the MRI Magnet into your MRI exam suite. You will need to let them know the areas that are 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 normally provide a site plan with key information noted for the client and their staff, and others in the building as needed.

Plan on checking in a few days before site delivery, with the Semitrailer Truck driver that is delivering your MRI Magnet, and the Crane foreman, to ensure all is on track for delivery day.

If the building that will be housing your MRI site, is in an active Office Building, it will be very important 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 to utilized for active patients, their families, all employees, and any 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 much can go wrong, and everything needs to go very 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 precision event, that will set the stage for the very successful implementation of your MRI Imaging Center.

We can manage the complete process for you and ensure a safe and uneventful delivery of your MRI Magnet!

Six Weeks until MRI “Go Live,” Work to be done

After the placement of the MRI Magnet in your MRI suite, some amount of additional equipment drops will be made that day of initial Magnet Delivery and in the two week period following that delivery. For the next four to six weeks until “Go Live," your MRI unit will be clucking away, plugged in on a semi dormant state until additional Helium fueling and the process of final assembly occurs. Your MRI unit will be connected by 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, will need to be put in place, with quality signage, safeguards, and instructions for all.

In this Consultation and Assistance Module we address

*Where are you in the process at present?

*Are you looking at a ground floor, slab on grade installation, or second floor or higher, installation?

*Are you looking at installing; an extremity MRI Magnet, a 1.5 Tesla or smaller magnet, or a 3.0 Tesla Magnet?

*A full checklist will be provided (There is more than what I have referenced in the content above) of all that needs to be addressed in the Pre-Planning for the Scheduling, Delivery, and Site Placement of your MRI Magnet.

*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 to make sure you have been, 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. Working closely with your MRI Vendor Project Manager to make you are on the same page with them. Confirm your actual MRI magnet is being built, or completed, and confirmed set aside for delivery on the date they have indicated that 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 related to the retention 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 the way of customer readiness for the  MRI Magnet , “Lift Day.” Confirm how their fees are derived as well.

*Preparing for possible lift day challenges.

*What does your site look like in terms of possible lift and boom swing challenges; proximity to retaining wall(s), work buildings, trees, ditches, streams, water, uneven terrain, etc.?

*Does your site experience very difficult seasonal whether events?

*We will be prepared to answer all questions that you might have regarding this area of preplanning.

*If you want us to provide a custom quote on us taking this project portion over completely on your behalf and to your satisfaction, we can work with you on that quote if you wish. We can send you images from previous projects of the various steps with various customers regarding this process