Helium shortages when using MRI equipment can be troublesome. For those affected by shortages, Amber USA has devised a set of strategies to help make sure you don’t have to face the issues that follow in times of scarcity. The following are three tips to help minimize the impact of helium scarcity in a medical facility.

First and foremost, it is essential to find a partner that puts together a contract for your facility to ensure you have helium when you need it. Multiple medical facilities often find themselves in a tough spot when they realize they haven’t registered for a service agreement to tend to the needs of the equipment. Wherever your facility decides to purchase your service agreement, we recommend establishing a service agreement to protect your equipment as best as possible.

Reduce the consumption of Helium.
Monitoring the remote magnet is highly recommended and doing so would help offer the ability to catch HVAC issues that would be able to kick the compressor off on the weekend. It may also help identify an increase in the magnet pressure that causes increased boiling while also being able to monitor the helium levels over each week. With this attention, the possibility of excessive helium losses could be reduced substantially. If you’re still using an older magnet style, consider upgrading it to a zero-boil off or a high-efficient magnet.

Address the issue with a possible long-term positive effect.
Try to replace your MRI cold head before it flatlines, and schedule regular preventive maintenance on your chiller; doing so could help save you from the stress and panic of needing repairs in the future.

Pay attention to your equipment and plan ahead.
Attempt to go through your helium consumption records to know about the expected monthly helium loss throughout its use. By making use of this information, you might just be able to respond more effectively if you happen to see an increase in the boil-off.

If you’re using a new system or one that is coming online, try to notify the helium provider with what you are currently using as soon as possible. Make sure to give the providers a heads up on the loss. The providers would be grateful you did so. Even if there isn’t a helium shortage yet, notifying the providers would help you and make things easier for them to handle in the future. Updating the providers regularly on the helium levels of the current magnets can also help avoid needing an emergency fill in the future.

While there isn’t a certainty of when helium shortages would come to an end, there are ways to use the current supply as effectively as possible and keep the cryogen costs as low as possible. If you’re looking to obtain more information regarding your MRI machines, maintenance, we at Amber USA provide quality service to help our clients keep their medical practices running without interruptions. If you are, however, looking to purchase an MRI machine altogether, we offer a variety of different MRI equipment including stand up MRI machines and portable MRI machine at affordable costs.

At Amber USA, we also issue a variety of other high-quality and affordable used and refurbished medical imaging equipment from leading brands including x-ray machine, a portable xray machine, CT scanners of an array of slices, and much more. Contact us now at Amber USA for more information.