It isn’t enough to simply hire an architect, or even a ‘healthcare’ architect. If your child had a heart murmur, you wouldn’t be satisfied with just a pediatrician, would you? You would want a pediatric cardiologist, a level of expertise which would assure you that you were getting the care and service that you needed. The same is true for the design of MRI and multi-modal radiology facilities.

Even architectural firms with extensive portfolios in radiology aren’t necessarily good at radiology design. Equipment vendors provide highly-polished templates so that the architects and engineers can simply cut-and-paste the canned design into their drawings. But vendor templates are provided only to meet the minimum operational requirements of the equipment. They don’t address the issues of suite safety, future equipment upgrades, interventional use, infection control, among many others. These are left to the operators of the MRI and their architects.

So how do you select an architect that has the expertise you need to protect your patients, millions of dollars in equipment, and the long-term financial viability of your MRI suite?

We’ve identified a solicitation, or request for qualifications, issued by the VA for a MRI project that we feel is one of the best at highlighting issues of safety and operation. Click on 'Good MRI Architect Solicitation' in the column to the left to be taken to the text of that RFQ.

Additionally, we’ve also developed a list of 10 questions that every MRI architect should be able to answer on the spot. Click on '10 Questions To Ask Your MRI Architect' in the column to the left to read the original 10 questions.

So, should you hire expert MRI architects or some group with pretty pictures of healthcare facilities? Consider not only the hudreds of thousands of dollars you'll invest in the facility, but also the millions of dollars in MRI equipment and revenue.