Interrelating sentinel event alert #38 with the ACR guidance document on MR safe practices: 2013. An MRI accreditation safety review tool

When, in 2008, the Joint Commission released its Sentinel Event Alert #38 regarding MRI safety, it joined the ACR's Guidance Document on MR Safe Practices as one of two radiology best-practice documents establishing MR safety protections. However, particularly for MR providers who held both modality-level accreditation from the ACR, and enterprise-level accreditation from the Joint Commission, there has been confusion about which institution's standard takes precedence, or whether there are inherent conflicts between the two. With the release of the 2013 update to the ACR Guidance Document on MR Safe Practices, the authors have cross-referenced the performance criteria of both MR safety standards, and correlated the ACR Guidance Document performance criteria with the Joint Commission's Environment of Care standards. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2013;37:531543. (c) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.