VIDEO: An Exam Room on Wheels

NOXUBEE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – A MRI mobile unit rolled in to Noxubee County on Wednesday, to service patients needing scans.

Superior MRI Services comes to the hospital once a week to provide the services.

Your doctor may want you to have an MRI.

That’s a scan that takes a close up look inside a specific area of your body.

These scans help with diagnosis and treatment.

Noxubee General Hospital is one of many across the state without an in-hospital MRI unit.

Now, that has changed.

This exam room is on wheels.

For Noxubee County residents like Courtney Bush, that means staying closer to home if he needs a scan.

“Before this was put in place at Noxubee General, we had to travel to Columbus to the Imaging Center over there, so we are proud to have it here at Noxubee Medical Complex, so that we can have it close to home and be here for our residents also.”

The mobile unit scans around 15 to 20 patients a day.

It’s a big benefit for rural hospitals like Noxubee General and its patients, to provide services in their own backyard.

“Here in Macon, we have a lot of older people who may not have transportation to drive far out to get these MRIs, so with this machine being available here, I think it will be greatly utilized by the community and it’s an excellent service for them,” says Noxubee General Nurse, Sam Kratzer.

A system like this costs more than a million dollars and to add a MRI room would cost Noxubee General another three to four hundred thousand dollars, on top of other expenses.

“Your maintenance is anywhere from eight to twelve thousand dollars a month just to keep the equipment up, so by the time you add all those factors in, if you’re not doing three to four hundred patients a month, it’s just not cost effective,” says Superior MRI Services CEO, John Park.

The mobile unit runs off of the hospital’s power and has a generator on board in case of power loss.

All test results come directly to the staff at Noxubee General.