Using near-miss events to improve MRI safety in a large academic centre

Near-miss events represent an opportunity to identify and correct errors that jeopardise patient safety. The MRI environment poses potential safety threats and is frequently associated with near misses or adverse events related to improper safety screening for presence of cardiac pacemakers and other potential contraindications. At our institution, MRI safety screening lacked a formalised structure and standardisation; the process relied on a single-step safety screening process. As a result, we observed a significant number of near misses associated with improper MRI screening that resulted in ‘close calls’ in patients with incompatible metals implants. The purpose of this project was to use a quality improvement approach to analyse the near-miss pattern and create a multistep intervention to decrease the number of near misses associated with MRI screening and to ultimately decrease the potential for patient harm. Using the Plan-Do-Study-Act model, we decreased the number of MRI near misses from 22 to zero near misses in 1 year after implementation. The project demonstrates successful transformation of near misses to a never event: a reportable event that should never happen. The project also demonstrates the importance in targeting and prioritising a pattern of near misses, which are unplanned events that do not result in injury but had great potential to do so.