CNI Best Practices and Etiquette (#2)

This week’s topics are reminders about important practices of time management, neatness, and supply usage we follow to make our facility run smoothly. Our facility is extremely busy so it is important to adhere to these best practices for the facility to work efficiently and well for all users. We thank you for that and look forward to continuing this culture.

1. Time management.  We depend on our community to be respectful of the schedule.

• Good practice is to stop your scan before the end of your scheduled time so that your participant can get changed and collect all their personal items in a timely way.
• Make sure that MRI scanner and console is ready for the next group.  This includes
  • ending the exam so that the GE scanning computer is ready for the next users,
  • closing all the data viewers on the GE scanning computer,
  • wiping down with Lysol wipes highly touched surfaces such as the squeeze ball, pulse-oximetry attachment, button boxes, etc.,
  • wiping down and putting away all the memory foam pad and neck supports in their storage boxes in the magnet room,
  • cleaning off any tape residue on the squeeze ball with a Lysol wipe, please do not leave sticky messes on the attached black hose – clean it off with a Lysol wipe,
  • unplugging and putting away button boxes used during your scanning session,
  • detaching the web camera and/or the IR source from the coil
  • if you used the MRI safe lenses, please clean them and put them back into their correct mini drawers. Please check to make sure that your participant is not leaving CNI and taking MRI safe glasses with them.
  • If you break something or find something that is broken please let CNI staff know as soon as possible, so that it can be replaced with a backup.

2.  Neatness.  This really has a big effect.  The reminders below are examples of mistakes over the last few months.  Please help. Like visiting wilderness areas — please leave no trace of your presence.

• Do not leave used coffee cups, empty water bottles, used earplugs, used socks, and used paper bags, used Lysol wipes, used sanitary covers, used pieces of tape, and other trash in the magnet room, in the control room, in the mock scanner room, in the testing room, and in the rest rooms.
• Also do not leave personal items such as jackets, hair ties, bobby pins, baby clothes, jewelry.
• Please supervise your participants so that they know where used scrubs, used socks, used earplugs and used paper bags go when a scanning session has been completed. This is particularly important whcn scanning adolescents as they tend to leave things in strange places.  But it is always important.
• Please put used linens and used scrubs into their bins, do not drape them over the sides.
• Do not put trash into the used linens bins. Put trash into the labelled trash bins.
• Enjoying food and drink at CNI is a privilege. We can only continue to allow this if everyone is fastidious about cleaning up any residue. Please wipe down tables and chairs. Vacuum the floor if there are food crumbs with the portable vacuum cleaner located in the control room. Take any leftover food or food stained packages to the garbage containers outside — they will otherwise attract ants and other critters if left inside. If we can’t keep the place clean, we will be forced to ban food and drink.  We don’t want to do that!

3.  Supplies.  You may be surprised to learn that the CNI operates on a very lean budget, and you may be further surprised to learn that a large fraction of it goes to supplies.  To help us keep our rates low, please:

• Do not take pens, paper, gloves, masks, Lysol wipes away for your own use.
• Scrubs are for participants only. Do not take them away for personal use in other locations.
• Do not take computer chargers located by the GE console. If they are not there this causes great stress to users.
• Do not take computer adapters. There is a good collection of various types and users do depend on them being there for their scanning session.

We are always open to suggestions for any improvements to our operations and happy to help users anytime.

Thanks,

The CNI Team