PROGRESS: Sioux City hospital acquires equipment to make MRI easier for children

MRI uses powerful magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed images of the body, including organs, soft tissue and bone.

The Sioux City hospital obtained an anesthesia machine with funding from UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's Children's Miracle Network last June that can be used in the same room with diagnostic equipment with a strong magnetic field.

The machine allows anesthesia to be administered to a child to put him or her to sleep. The machine also allows hospital staff to properly ventilate the patient and monitor his or her heart rate during a scan that can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour.

In April, the hospital began using a special metal-free infusion pump, which delivers controlled doses of medications and fluids to the bodies of its youngest patients while they are undergoing MRI.

Over the past year, the equipment has benefited 27 pediatric patients ranging in age from 10 months to 14 years.

Jim Nolen, St. Luke's lead radiology nurse, said he no longer has to wait 45 minutes after giving a patient a sedative to see if it worked. Those sedatives often wore off during the scan, causing a child to move around.

"With this you can go right to IV anesthesia. It's a one-time shot. They're sedated. They get their pictures. They get their diagnosis," he said. "That'll speed up their whole treatment process."

In the past, Nolen said, families of patients age 10 and younger had to travel to Omaha or Sioux Falls, where MRI-adapted equipment was available. In addition to medical bills, these families incurred costly hotel stays and transportation-related expenses.

Each year UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's Children's Miracle Network accepts applications from various hospital departments for grant funding. In 2014, they received a request from the hospital's radiology department asking for $60,000 for the MRI-compatible anesthesia machine.

Anne Holmes, director of UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's Children's Miracle Network, said the organization looks for ways to keep more children in Siouxland for treatment. She said the radiology department's request fit the bill.

"It's so much easier on families who are dealing with an uncertain medical condition in the first place," she said. "It's convenient and it helps provide some peace of mind for families."