Junior Fellow Symposium: Finding Value in MRI
Weekday Course

ORGANIZERS: Aikaterini Kotrotsou, Christopher Nguyen

Wednesday, 20 June 2018

Session Number: W-07

Overview
MRI has great potential to be an integral tool for value-based medicine; however, MRI is being under-utilized and is expensive. This symposium aims at presenting research and hosting a discussion towards increasing the value in MRI. The 3 speakers will discuss:
1) Clinical perspective and outlining of the challenges behind the under-utilization of MR for outcome, high cost of MR for clinical use, and potential barriers of using MR for precision medicine; 2) Lowering the cost of hardware: low-field and portable scanners including low-cost actuators (gradients, RF, etc.) and also possibly machine learning to provide image quality of high field but at low field; 3) Lowering the cost associated with scan time: fast acceleration techniques as well as comprehensive quantitative mapping to yield shorter scans while maintaining the same clinically relevant information; 4) The panel discussion will include the 3 speakers as well as 3 representatives from GE, Philips, and Siemens to have a fruitful discussion on value-based MRI. 

We believe having an open dialogue with industry will give a pragmatic perspective of the potential future implementation of the active research in value-based MR. The moderators will direct the panel discussion with questions vetted by the organizing Junior Fellow committee.

Target Audience
The Junior Fellow symposium is targeting a wide audience, including MR physicists & engineers, clinicians (radiologists and referring physicians), and researchers with biomedical/biological background. MR physicists & engineers and researchers with biomedical/biological backgrounds will benefit from understanding how to contextualize their research and innovation in the face of rising healthcare costs. Clinicians will be exposed to the cost-saving technologies pursued and the numerous examples where MRI is being under-utilized in the clinic.

Educational Objectives
As a result of attending this course, participants should be able to:
-Identify areas where MR is being under-utilized;
-Identify areas of high cost in MRI;
-Describe current research with regard to MRI value; and
-Produce new research directions that focus on finding value in MR.