Pediatric Hybrid Intraoperative MRI Neurosurgery Suite Opens at Children’s Minnesota

Children’s Minnesota is one of the first health system’s in North America to open a pediatric hybrid intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging suite equipped with both moving-scanner and moving-patient MRI technology in the same surgical space.

Located inside its Minneapolis hospital, The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation iMRI Surgical Suite is a 2,970 square-foot space used by Children’s Minnesota’s neurosciences program and radiology department. Experts will perform both brain and total spine scans mid-procedure for surgeries to treat brain tumors, epilepsy, traumatic injuries and more directly at the point of care.

The suite’s design allows experts to move a 16,200-pound 3T MRI scanner directly from the facility’s diagnostic room into one of the space’s neurosurgery operating rooms via a ceiling-mounted rail system. The floorplan also allows patients in the suite’s second operating room to be moved next door into the diagnostic room for a mid-procedure MRI. The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation donated $4 million toward the construction of the iMRI suite.