Ten tips on how to get the most life out of your coils
September 28, 2015
by Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter
MR coils are very fragile pieces of equipment, but with the proper handling and care you can get the most life out of them.
John Vartanian, director of business development at Oxford Instruments Healthcare, David Woodcock, MR product specialist at BC Technical, and LeRoy Blawat, president of Resonant Diagnostics LLC, shared a few tips with HealthCare Business News on how that can be done.
1. Handle with care
“The way that they are handled is the biggest issue out there,” says Vartanian. “They get dropped, the cords get twisted, they get pinched, or the plug port isn’t clear and they force the plug in, which causes damage. Another problem comes from contrast getting on the plug and/or port connectors.” A plug should never be forced into the port. “Instead of pulling it out and reinserting it straight, technicians and even service engineers wiggle it around, which can cause pins to be damaged,” says Woodcock. Once the connector on the coil or on the magnet is damaged, the other connectors and then other coils will start to experience problems. It must be removed to check for dirt, wiped off with an alcohol pad and then reinserted properly.
2. Stow the coils sitting flat when not in use
Coils will often be stored standing up against the wall, which doesn’t do damage in the short-term, but over time it may. If the cord is hanging down or draped over the side of a shelf, it pulls on the wires and pins. The coils should be stowed sitting flat with the cable or cables in a position that doesn’t put strain on them. They must also be stored with pads to further protect the outside surfaces, says Woodcock.
3. Have an assigned spot for your coil
The coils need to be stored in the right place, at the right time. Coils are more likely to be damaged in mobile sites because space is at a premium. If a coil is put at the end of a table or on a countertop, it may slide off and suffer damage. Sometimes a coil is put under a table and gets crushed when the table is lowered after the study. “It’s catastrophic because it crushes all of the fiberglass plastic molding,” says Vartanian. Coils should always be stored in an assigned cabinet to prevent those kinds of problems. “They are very fragile and technical and they need to be treated with care,” says Vartanian.
4. A temporary fix should only be temporary
If a coil case is broken or cracked, tape will work as a temporary fix, but it should never be a permanent solution. In most cases, the hard casing is meant to relieve strain on, or protect, circuit board runs, copper foil connections and solder joints/components. The tape is flexible so it allows components to move, and that can cause connection breaks or poor connections, which leads to degraded image quality and premature coil failure. Instead, it must be properly repaired as soon as possible by your service provider. “It causes a lot of problems if you don’t get things like that repaired,” says Woodcock. “A temporary fix should just be temporary.”
5. Fix coil and RF errors
You should refrain from using coils that exhibit coil and/or RF errors because it will put the patients at risk if coils unknowingly aren’t properly tuned and detuned. It may also cause component damage or component degradation in the coil, which will lead to premature failure or degraded image quality. Woodcock says that recurring errors must be reported to your service representative for further troubleshooting, to prevent intermittent problems from becoming permanent problems.
6. Maintain a log of RF/coil-related errors
Errors should be reported that indicate the coil being used and the type of scan, so that the problems that are common to certain coils or coil paths can be correlated. That way issues can be resolved before the problems escalate in severity and frequency, says Woodcock.
7. Maintenance
The engineer who is performing the maintenance should be checking the signal-to-noise ratio. Woodcock recommends that they look at images on multiple coils in order to spot artifacts in the background. The condition of the connectors also needs to be checked. If there is any damage or there are errors, the connectors need to be replaced or straightened so that it doesn’t spread throughout the system.
8. Routine cleaning
The technician usually cleans the coils and the engineer is responsible for cleaning the port and plug end. If those parts aren’t cleaned, they get tarnished over time and the connection starts to diminish. “It’s really important to keep up to date with plug and port maintenance,” says Vartanian. “You really don’t want to be cleaning something that small after it’s been tarnished. If you keep up on the maintenance and cleaning, they operate very well.”
9. Clean with the proper solution
Coils, external pads and the cable assembly should be wiped down with a bleach and water solution or rubbing alcohol with a soft cotton cloth. Solvents that dull or damage the finish of the coils and the pads should be avoided. The MR tables should also be cleaned so that the rubber pads at the bottom of the coils adhere to the table.
10. Proper training for MR technicians
The MR technicians need to be properly trained on how to use and transport the coil. They must be taught not to carry flexible coils by the flexible part of the coil assembly, and also not to carry the coil by the cable or yank the cable away from the coil interface. They should also never try to scan without the coil first being plugged in because that can cause major damage in some types of coils.
“In the end, MR coils are no different than any other device in that if you keep them clean, handle them with care and do some periodic maintenance to them, they will last a long time,” says Blawat.
John Vartanian, director of business development at Oxford Instruments Healthcare, David Woodcock, MR product specialist at BC Technical, and LeRoy Blawat, president of Resonant Diagnostics LLC, shared a few tips with HealthCare Business News on how that can be done.
1. Handle with care
“The way that they are handled is the biggest issue out there,” says Vartanian. “They get dropped, the cords get twisted, they get pinched, or the plug port isn’t clear and they force the plug in, which causes damage. Another problem comes from contrast getting on the plug and/or port connectors.” A plug should never be forced into the port. “Instead of pulling it out and reinserting it straight, technicians and even service engineers wiggle it around, which can cause pins to be damaged,” says Woodcock. Once the connector on the coil or on the magnet is damaged, the other connectors and then other coils will start to experience problems. It must be removed to check for dirt, wiped off with an alcohol pad and then reinserted properly.
2. Stow the coils sitting flat when not in use
Coils will often be stored standing up against the wall, which doesn’t do damage in the short-term, but over time it may. If the cord is hanging down or draped over the side of a shelf, it pulls on the wires and pins. The coils should be stowed sitting flat with the cable or cables in a position that doesn’t put strain on them. They must also be stored with pads to further protect the outside surfaces, says Woodcock.
3. Have an assigned spot for your coil
The coils need to be stored in the right place, at the right time. Coils are more likely to be damaged in mobile sites because space is at a premium. If a coil is put at the end of a table or on a countertop, it may slide off and suffer damage. Sometimes a coil is put under a table and gets crushed when the table is lowered after the study. “It’s catastrophic because it crushes all of the fiberglass plastic molding,” says Vartanian. Coils should always be stored in an assigned cabinet to prevent those kinds of problems. “They are very fragile and technical and they need to be treated with care,” says Vartanian.
4. A temporary fix should only be temporary
If a coil case is broken or cracked, tape will work as a temporary fix, but it should never be a permanent solution. In most cases, the hard casing is meant to relieve strain on, or protect, circuit board runs, copper foil connections and solder joints/components. The tape is flexible so it allows components to move, and that can cause connection breaks or poor connections, which leads to degraded image quality and premature coil failure. Instead, it must be properly repaired as soon as possible by your service provider. “It causes a lot of problems if you don’t get things like that repaired,” says Woodcock. “A temporary fix should just be temporary.”
5. Fix coil and RF errors
You should refrain from using coils that exhibit coil and/or RF errors because it will put the patients at risk if coils unknowingly aren’t properly tuned and detuned. It may also cause component damage or component degradation in the coil, which will lead to premature failure or degraded image quality. Woodcock says that recurring errors must be reported to your service representative for further troubleshooting, to prevent intermittent problems from becoming permanent problems.
6. Maintain a log of RF/coil-related errors
Errors should be reported that indicate the coil being used and the type of scan, so that the problems that are common to certain coils or coil paths can be correlated. That way issues can be resolved before the problems escalate in severity and frequency, says Woodcock.
7. Maintenance
The engineer who is performing the maintenance should be checking the signal-to-noise ratio. Woodcock recommends that they look at images on multiple coils in order to spot artifacts in the background. The condition of the connectors also needs to be checked. If there is any damage or there are errors, the connectors need to be replaced or straightened so that it doesn’t spread throughout the system.
8. Routine cleaning
The technician usually cleans the coils and the engineer is responsible for cleaning the port and plug end. If those parts aren’t cleaned, they get tarnished over time and the connection starts to diminish. “It’s really important to keep up to date with plug and port maintenance,” says Vartanian. “You really don’t want to be cleaning something that small after it’s been tarnished. If you keep up on the maintenance and cleaning, they operate very well.”
9. Clean with the proper solution
Coils, external pads and the cable assembly should be wiped down with a bleach and water solution or rubbing alcohol with a soft cotton cloth. Solvents that dull or damage the finish of the coils and the pads should be avoided. The MR tables should also be cleaned so that the rubber pads at the bottom of the coils adhere to the table.
10. Proper training for MR technicians
The MR technicians need to be properly trained on how to use and transport the coil. They must be taught not to carry flexible coils by the flexible part of the coil assembly, and also not to carry the coil by the cable or yank the cable away from the coil interface. They should also never try to scan without the coil first being plugged in because that can cause major damage in some types of coils.
“In the end, MR coils are no different than any other device in that if you keep them clean, handle them with care and do some periodic maintenance to them, they will last a long time,” says Blawat.