Mt Isa Hospital: MRI Cooling

“Thanks to PREH's robust cooling system, the hospital's new MRI saves around 1000 patients a year having to travel to Cairns or Townsville."

CHALLENGE

The client asked PREH to design, supply and install a complete cooling and exhaust system for their MRI Examination and Equipment rooms. While the fulfilment of the brief had inherent challenges due to the hospital's remote location, even more difficult was the tight project schedule, which required the cooling system to be installed prior to the MRI machine's delivery.

THE CLIENT

In 2015, the Mt Isa Hospital received approval for the purchase of an MRI machine.

ENGINEERING SOLUTION

The cooling system our engineers designed consisted of one chiller, with multi circuits and stages, facilitating maximum cooling uptime and no downtime in the case of a compressor failure.

The system also ticked the hospital's box for energy efficiency, by entering power saving mode when the MRI is not performing scans. In addition, PREH supplied a CRAC unit (Computer Room Air Conditioner), to control the humidity and temperature in the Examination and Equipment rooms.

The successful installation of the MRI cooling system is saving around 1000 patients a year having to travel to Cairns or Townsville for MRI scans and is provide a more timely diagnosis for conditions such as strokes, trauma and cancer.