Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

If you’ve been in an MRI facility, you've probably noticed a large red button in a conspicuous place. Did you feel the urge to press it? Did you wonder what would happen if you did? Maybe, but you'd NEVER actually press it – because you are not 7 years old, right? What you were looking at was, essentially, the MRI’s “Off” button. Turning an MRI off can be done in a couple different ways: one that's slower, easier on the machine, and a whole lot cheaper, but the big, red button is by far the more exciting. It even has a cool name: "quench". If you're unsure of what happens when an MRI quenches, this blog is for you!

In recent years, helium has become more scarce and, therefore, expensive. Meanwhile, the race has been on among magnet manufacturers to dramatically reduce or even eliminate helium “burn” or “boil off” in an MRI. Fortunately, there have been a number of successes in that endeavor. But, just because the technology exists to bring helium consumption levels to all-time lows doesn't mean that most systems in the field today operate at that level. 

The following is a breakdown of typical helium loss rates among popular MRI models; some long-standing workhorses, others just beginning their years of service to patients in the field.

We recently shared in another blog article how much it costs to rent a mobile MRI machine. Naturally, this begged the question from a number of people, "How much does it cost to buy a mobile MRI machine?" We'll answer that today.

The US mobile market is both cyclical and nuanced. In the early 2000’s, mobile route providers were growing like crazy and the supply couldn’t keep up with the demand. From 2007-2015, as many care providers brought MRI in-house, the mobile supply outweighed the demand and market pricing fell.   

Given these market dynamics, the following prices are based on mobiles that were built, refurbished, or upgraded in 2015 or later.

Every day, our team has the privilege of helping medical professionals find the MRI equipment they're looking for and, increasingly, the name they're after is Philips.

The mainstay equipment type in MRI is most definitely the 1.5T closed-bore magnet. As facilities seek to fill this important space in their imaging stable with a Philips system, the two models they most often have in mind are the Philips Achieva and the Philips Ingenia. Below, we'll compare the Achieva and the Ingenia to help you better understand their features and the value each system brings for buyers on the secondary market.