MRI Technology for Greater Efficiency and Improved Value

PROJECT SUMMARY: The overall goal of this application is to design technologies that improve the value of MRI, and specifically mitigate many of the complications the negatively impact this value. The scope of MRI value is vast, but can be expressed by efficiency (high patient throughput and consistent image quality), accessibility (better scope of use and equity of availability), safety, and user experience for the patient, technologist, and interpreting physician. The wide reach of this goal reflects a strategy to improve these expressions of value broadly, if not completely. The motive for a broad strategy grows from observations that shared complications such as scanning inefficiencies, patient anxiety, inconsistent image quality, and technologist distraction from the patient reduce many of these value expressions, which in turn results in a cascade of negative impacts on each other. Thus, our two-fold aim is to improve efficiencies directly with optimized scanning, and also to mitigate complications that impede value at several levels. This application creates and brings together a broad array of technologies and work to achieve these aims with design goals of (1) scanning efficiency, (2), operational simplicity, (3) operational clarity, and (4) a strong patient focus. Specific outcomes from this application will include (i) faster scanning for most common clinical sequences, (ii) consistently higher image quality and consistent signal contrast, (iii) fewer operational and protocoling errors, (iv) faster scanner operation (time between scans), (v) scans which are quieter and have less rf power deposition (for patients with active implants), and (vi) less distraction of the technologist from an ideally patient-centered role. This drive towards simplicity and consistency, along with improved experience of the technologist and interpreting physician, should improve access, and is urgently needed given the dire shortages of both technologists and radiologists along with expected increases in the need for diagnostic imaging given population trends. Specific technologies introduced include (1) a portfolio of spiral-based, SNR-optimal sequences designed to be well-matched with modern, AI based reconstruction, (2) supporting infrastructure to automate and clarify a wide array of operational tasks in order to remove technologist distraction, prevent errors, and improve consistency, and (3) introduction of a highly novel approach to protocoling and operating the scanner that is designed for the user and employs a physics-free lexicon. We will test the performance of these technologies for their speed, image quality, and clarity, and deploy them in a clinical venue for evaluation.