During medical equipment and hospital information system implementation in small- and medium-sized hospitals, the system introduction often advances after system selection by the management. However, in reality, the requirements of the systems between the management and staff layers were different. Therefore, the system did not often satisfy staff demands, resulting in increased dissatisfaction of the staff for the system. It was important to consider the staff’s opinion at the selection of the system manufacturer, vendor, and system to resolve their dissatisfaction for a system. In this study, we let the staff decrease these dissatisfactions in selecting a system manufacturer, vendor, and a system at the system implementation. Therefore, we consider a more useful system implementation method through the staff’s motivation building by the questionnaire result analysis. The questionnaire was carried out after each event in relation to system implementation. The enforcement of event for system implementation was useful for the staff’s motivation building, because we can consider the staff’s opinion with staff understanding. During system implementation, it was important and/or necessary for building the staff’s motivation for the success of the system implementation and to utilize it after the implementation.

The creation of the business continuity plan (BCP) for disaster key hospitals were mandated by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on March 31, 2017. The creation of BCP must take countermeasures assuming damage at all levels. In Japan, a light box is no longer being used by a shift to soft-copy diagnosis. However, supposing the hospital network failure occurred, we assumed the film diagnosis was necessary for radiological examination images. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the film diagnosis using a medical monitor with high luminance (410, 800 cd/m²) instead of the light box is inferior or not to a monitor diagnosis (410 cd/m²) in detecting pulmonary nodules. Ten radiological technologists participated in the observer tests for detection of nodules, respectively. In each observer test, radiological technologists marked their confidence levels for the diagnosis of pulmonary nodules. The detection performance of radiological technologists was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The average area under the ROC curve (AUC) value in detecting pulmonary nodules with monitor (410 cd/m²) and film (410 cd/m²), film (800 cd/m²) were 0.770 and 0.754, 0.806 respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between monitor (410 cd/m²) and film (410, 800 cd/m²) for detection of pulmonary nodules (P=0.32, 0.09). Therefore, we believe that the film diagnosis can be used for the medical monitor instead of the light box when film operation in case of a disaster inevitable.

The defectiveness of the fat suppression becomes the factor of the decrease of the quality of the diagnosis of magnetic resonance imaging. It is reported that the use of magnetic field uniformity adjuvant pad is effective for reduce poor fat suppression. The ball bullets, polystyrene balls, and polished rice are used for pad packing material, in recently, it was reported that fat suppression effect was good by the use of the small glass beads. Therefore, we tested the utility of small glass beads pad in the neck and fingers in this study. Neck and the fingers of subjects were imaged with T₁-weighted image with fat suppression and T₁-high resolution isotropic volume excitation image. The fat suppression effect of each image was compared with the polished rice and glass beads as material of pad used by physical, observation, and contact evaluation. In the result, satisfactory results were obtained by using glass beads, and it is suggested that fat suppression effect is improved by using glass beads as a filling material of pad in clinical study as a conclusion.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the image quality and the visibility of trigger angiography non-contrast enhanced (TRANCE) in diastolic phase and 3D balanced steady-state free precession (3D SSFP) sequences for the evaluation of pulmonary vein (PV) and left atrium (LA). Methods: About 10 volunteers underwent TRANCE and 3D SSFP imaging on 1.5 T MRI. Axial images were reconstructed and regions of interest were positioned on the right superior pulmonary vein (RSPV), right inferior pulmonary vein (RIPV), left superior pulmonary vein (LSPV), left inferior pulmonary vein (LIPV), LA, and left atrial appendage (LAA). Contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) between each part and muscle were calculated and compared between two sequences. The two observers independently scored the image quality of each image on the basis of PV, LA, and LAA anatomy and contour using a five-point scale, which scores were averaged and compared. Results: CNRs on RSPV, RIPV, LSPV, LIPV, LA, and LAA were significantly higher in TRANCE sequence compared with 3D SSFP sequence. On visual assessment, TRANCE showed significantly higher scores in RSPV, RIPV, LSPV, LIPV compared with 3D SSFP sequence. Conclusions: TRANCE provides higher image quality in PVs and LA compared with 3D SSFP on 1.5 T MRI. On visual assessment, TRANCE provides better visibility of PVs anatomy and contour compared with 3D SSFP.

Purpose: To identify the influence of susceptibility artifact caused by commonly used trans-catheter embolic devices for vascular lesions in the body on the images of various magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) techniques as an aid to patient screening after endovascular embolization. Materials and Methods: We constructed vascular phantoms in which three embolic materials; platinum coil, Inconel coil, and vascular plug, were placed. Each phantom was imaged with three types of MRA techniques as follows: ultra-short echo time magnetic resonance imaging (UTE), three-dimensional fast advanced spin echo (3D-FASE), time-resolved contrast MRA with key hole technique (Key hole). For each embolic material, four reviewers compared the visual capabilities of the vessel lumen and surrounding area of each MRA technique by using a four-point visual scoring system. The quantitative values of susceptibility artifacts generated from each embolic material were compared between each MRA technique. Results: For all MRA techniques, the platinum coil showed the highest visual score (median=four-point) among all the embolic materials (p<0.05). In the platinum coil, the MR signal in the coil was clearly depicted in UTE. For all MRA technique, the quantitative values of the susceptibility artifacts were the lowest in platinum coil among all the embolic materials (p<0.05). Conclusion: UTE is less susceptible to susceptibility artifact of embolic materials.