Children centered care: Minimizing the need for anesthesia with a multi-faceted concept for MRI in children aged 4-6

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Imaging
• Medical Technology Innovation
• Patient-Centered Care

Background:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in children often requires general anesthesia (GA), posing risks and increasing costs.
• There is a need for alternative approaches to improve the pediatric MRI experience and reduce GA utilization.
• The Children Centered Care (CCC) concept aims to create a more child-friendly MRI environment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the CCC concept in reducing the need for GA in pediatric MRI for children aged 4-6 years.
• To compare the CCC approach with a standard MRI setup in terms of GA utilization, image quality, and cost-effectiveness.

Main Methods:

• A prospective study involving 81 children aged 4-6 years was conducted.
• The CCC intervention included an interactive app, a trained pediatric team, a children's lounge with a toy scanner, and a child-friendly multimedia environment.
• Data on GA use, image quality, and costs were collected and analyzed.

Main Results:

• 95% of children in the CCC group completed diagnostic MRI without GA, compared to 43% in the control group (p < 0.001).
• Image quality was comparable between the CCC and standard groups (p = 0.37).
• The CCC setup was found to be cost-effective with a two-year payback period in a Danish setting.

Conclusions:

• The multi-faceted CCC concept markedly reduced GA use in pediatric MRI for 4-6 year olds to 5%.
• Diagnostic image quality was maintained using the CCC approach.
• The CCC setup is a cost-effective strategy for pediatric MRI.