A new device at Victoria General Hospital (VGH) could help shorten wait times, cut costs and quell youngsters’ fears – all thanks to a group of hard-working Camosun College students. With funding from the Victoria Hospitals Foundation, the soon-to-be engineering grads built a pediatric MRI simulator for their capstone project – a task that ate up a whopping 5,000 hours over the span of just three-and-a-half months. The device, which acts, sounds and looks like a real MRI, was unveiled at VGH on Monday. “We’re so grateful for this opportunity,” said Camosun student Julianna Kwan. “We were able to use the skills we learned during the program and actually make something with our own hands, which is super special, and it’s going to really impact a lot of people positively.” Just like training wheels help kids learn how to bike, the simulator will prepare youngsters for real MRI scans, which the hospital’s child life practice lead Becki Steel explained “can be a really overwhelming experience.” “If kids have an opportunity to practise things and … break things down into steps, it's really not as scary as it might seem,” she said. “But if you go directly into a tunnel and it plays loud clunking noises that sound like your refrigerator's broken, who wouldn't be scared?” Because receiving an MRI can be intimidating, the majority of patients under the age of eight are first sedated, according to Joshua Coulson, the hospital’s manager for pediatric surgical daycare and ambulatory clinics. He added the process requires “a sedation nurse with a sedation respiratory therapist and an intensivist to make sure all of the pieces are in place." Though MRI scans at VGH take place 24 hours per day, the hospital only offers scans for kids requiring sedation three times per week. Right now, the waitlist for these sought-after appointments is 68-names long. “Getting access to the sedation team is a big roadblock because it requires a lot of resources,” said pediatric intensive care doctor Allon Beck. "The sedation team costs money to run and maintain." If VGH can ready kids for MRI scans, to the point where they are confident enough to opt not for sedation, they can be squeezed into any of the many MRI timeslots throughout the day – thereby cutting wait times and costs. Beck added that the simulator could also positively inform kids’ long-term perceptions of the health-care system. “I've seen children go into the MRI scanner not realizing just how loud and disorienting it is and come out of it in tears,” he said. “As soon as a child has a bad experience ... with a medical procedure like an MRI, then that just heightens their anxiety the next time they have to encounter the health-care system.” The hospital has already identified 53 children on the MRI waitlist to try the simulator, according to Coulson, who hopes the new machine will decrease the rate of sedation for kids' MRI scans by 50 to 90 per cent.
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