How Hospitals Use Mobile MRI During Renovations and Equipment Replacement

How Hospitals Use Mobile MRI During Renovations and Equipment Replacement

A hospital keeps MRI patients on campus when the fixed room is offline. It parks a mobile MRI trailer at the site. It moves the schedule onto that unit. The outage can be a failure, a repair, a replacement, or a renovation. The studies do not have to leave with the room.

Quick Answer

Park a trailer-housed 1.5T MRI on a prepared pad. Connect 480V power and the network. Then scan on site. Amber Diagnostics usually quotes an MRI rental for three months. Month-to-month extensions come after that term. The pad, the power feed, and the permits set the start date. The trailer does not.

How do I keep scanning patients while my scanner is down?

You keep the work on campus. A mobile MRI rental is a scanner inside a trailer. The trailer stays at your site for the full term. It is not an off-site referral. Once the pad, power, and permits are ready, your team scans the same patients on site.

Amber Diagnostics lists four 1.5T models in its current rental reference. Confirm that the unit is free before you put a model name in a plan. The GE SIGNA Voyager, the Siemens MAGNETOM Aera, and the Siemens MAGNETOM Espree are 70 cm wide-bore systems. The GE Signa HDxt is a 60 cm standard-bore system. The Espree magnet length is about 125 cm. Amber Diagnostics calls that length the shortest in its class.

A 70 cm bore can take bariatric, claustrophobic, and post-surgical patients who cannot tolerate a 60 cm bore. It can also make shoulder and hip studies more comfortable. Wide-bore systems usually have a higher patient-weight limit and a higher rental rate. The reference gives a typical wide-bore limit of about 500 lb. The exact rating depends on the model and the table. Confirm that number on the quoted unit.

The live rental page shows a trailer with dual slide-outs, a changing room, a patient lift, a roll-up door, and a stairwell. It also lists HVAC and an 8-foot magnetic exclusion zone from the trailer walls. Drawings on that page are guidance. They are not a promise that every unit matches the picture.

Four downtime types use this trailer. An unplanned failure can be a magnet quench, a chiller fault, or a gradient fault. A planned repair takes the room offline on a known date. A replacement opens a gap from the last scan on the old unit to acceptance of the new unit. A renovation can close the room, or only the path to it. Name the type before you price the term.

The facility must prepare the site. Use a level concrete or asphalt pad that supports the loaded trailer. Supply 480V, three-phase, 200A power at the pad. Supply a phone line and a network connection for PACS. Allow about 53 feet for the trailer. Allow 70 to 80 feet with the tractor. Allow more than 100 feet of approach space. Supply 14 feet of overhead clearance. Keep 10 to 15 feet clear on the door side.

Amber Diagnostics does transport, positioning, leveling, and utility connection. It does calibration and protocol setup. It works with your IT contact on the PACS link. It does a service verification before the first patient. Your team owns the schedule and the internal approvals. Your team also decides whether to use your own technologists.

Most customers use their own technologists. Amber Diagnostics can supply technologist staffing for a separate price. It can supply applications training for a daily fee if you give two weeks of notice. You supply the radiologist for general supervision. You also supply contrast and other consumables.

Typical delivery takes two to four weeks after a signed agreement. That window depends on unit availability. Emergency placement is possible only when a unit is already staged. Do not treat two weeks as a promise. Setup and calibration usually take one to three days after placement and power connection. A prepared site usually starts scans within one week after the trailer arrives. Site readiness is usually the critical path.

Service is part of the rental. You do not pay separate scanner parts or labor. Standard service runs Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Those hours exclude holidays. A hard-down event gets 24/7 coverage when the system cannot scan. Remote diagnostics can resolve many faults when the system supports them. Quarterly preventive maintenance is in the service window. This is a schedule. It is not an uptime rate.

The systems are DICOM compliant. They connect to an existing PACS, RIS, and worklist. You supply the network drop and an IT contact.

Most managers do not face a one-week repair. They face a multi-week replacement.

What is interim imaging coverage during a scanner replacement?

Interim imaging coverage is temporary scan capacity. It runs from the last scan on the old unit to acceptance of the new unit. A mobile MRI rental fills that window on your campus.

The sequence is plain. The old unit takes a final scan. A crew removes it. The room then needs prep, and that prep often includes RF shielding. The new magnet arrives. Installation, calibration, and physics acceptance testing come next. The trailer covers the days when the fixed room cannot scan.

The ACR-AAPM technical standard, revised in 2024, says every MR system must have a performance evaluation at installation and at least once a year. A Qualified Medical Physicist or a Qualified MR Scientist must do the acceptance testing. More checks can be necessary after a major repair or upgrade. Amber Diagnostics can coordinate physicist testing and ACR accreditation support for a separate price. State rules differ. Accreditation timing can control the first patient date.

A shielding vendor, Quality Shielding, updated its MRI room guide on May 2, 2026. That guide puts a full room project at 12 to 20 weeks from design finalization to an operational scanner. Installation and commissioning take one to two weeks in that guide. Treat this as a vendor planning range. Amber Diagnostics has not published its own average replacement gap.

The gap often runs past the install quote. Permits slip. Shielding work slips. Rigging windows slip. Price an extension before you sign. Month-to-month extensions are available after the initial term. Ask what notice the agreement needs before the trailer leaves.

Amber Diagnostics also removes fixed MRI systems. The old unit can leave while the trailer is on the pad. The new unit can land after the room is ready. Those are separate dates. Put each date in the agreement.

A mobile MRI rental covers MRI only. If the build also closes CT or PET/CT, rent those modalities on separate agreements. Amber Diagnostics offers mobile CT and mobile PET/CT for three, six, and 12 months. A 12-month term on those two modalities waives delivery and setup. An MRI waiver is not automatic. Ask.

Put the interim period in the capital project budget. Do not discover it after the room is already dark.

How do I bridge imaging capacity during construction?

Park the mobile MRI outside the work zone and phase the build around it. Construction dates move. Size the rental term to the phase. Put an extension in the agreement before you sign. Start the pad, the power feed, and the permits months before demolition.

Not every phase takes the scanner offline. Some phases only block the path to the room. Walk the drawing with the radiology director and the facilities lead. Mark the phases that stop scans. Rent for those phases. Do not rent for a phase that leaves the fixed room usable.

Site the trailer for the patient route. Measure the walk from the department door to the trailer door. Keep that route out of ambulance traffic and out of the contractor yard. The contractor must keep the pad out of the construction footprint. If the pad sits in the laydown yard, you will move the trailer mid-term. That move costs days.

Three items have the long lead time. The pad must be level and strong enough for the loaded trailer. The power feed must be 480V, three-phase, 200A at the pad. The permits are yours. You pay for site preparation, electrical work, water where necessary, and local permits. Amber Diagnostics does not control your city review clock.

A mobile unit does not always match fixed-room throughput. If one trailer cannot hold the full schedule, sort the studies. Put time-sensitive studies on the trailer. Delay studies that can wait without a change in care. Do not tell referrers that nothing will change until you know the daily slot count.

Construction delays are common. Price the extension before the crane is late. A three-month quote plus a written month-to-month extension is cleaner than a hopeful end date. Longer terms lower the monthly rate.

Capacity protects the schedule. The larger risk is patients who leave the system.

How do I avoid sending patients elsewhere during downtime?

Have coverage in place before the outage. Keep orders, the schedule, and the reads inside your own system. Once a referring physician sends a patient to another provider, that tie can last after your scanner returns. That leak is the cost that funds the rental. The monthly rate is not.

A 2016 paper in the Journal of the American College of Radiology measured outpatient MRI and CT leakage at one hospital system. Prabhakar and colleagues reviewed a risk-contract group from 2011 to 2013. The set held 18,008 MRI studies and 18,014 CT studies. Of those studies, 11,234 (31.2 percent) left the system. Of the full set, 21.4 percent went to unaffiliated facilities. The paper does not count how many downtime referrals come back later. It does show that a large share of outpatient MRI and CT volume already leaves. An outage that pushes more studies out adds to a leak that already exists.

Tell referrers the plan before the outage starts. Keep the same phone number and the same scheduling queue. Keep the reads with your own radiology group. Orthopedics, neurology, oncology staging, and spine clinics all need MRI access. If they hear that you are dark, they book elsewhere. If they hear the same number, a trailer on a named pad, and their own readers, more of them stay.

If the trailer has lower throughput, sort the list. Track scheduled volume, referral source, and cancel rates against your baseline. If a referral source drops in week two, the notice did not reach that clinic. Fix the notice. Do not wait for the fixed room to reopen.

When is a short-term rental better than a long-term lease for a downtime gap?

Use a short rental when the gap has a known end date. Amber Diagnostics usually quotes MRI rentals for three months. That term fits a repair, one replacement window, or one construction phase. Use a longer rental when the build has several phases or the end date is open.

Amber Diagnostics describes rental terms and rent-to-purchase. The current rental reference does not describe a separate lease contract. Do not ask for a lease product the agreement does not name.

The live rental form lists four bands: 1 to 3 months, 3 to 6 months, 6 to 12 months, and more than 12 months. Longer terms lower the monthly rate. Month-to-month extensions are available after the initial term. A 12-month CT or PET/CT term waives delivery and setup. That waiver is about $12,500 to $13,200. An MRI waiver is a question, not a rule.

Mobile MRI monthly rates in the reference run from $32,000 to $55,000. The rate depends on the unit and the term. Delivery is $9,000. Setup is $3,500. Those figures exclude taxes, insurance, physicist testing, and ACR support. The rate does not include a technologist. A very short rental still pays delivery and setup, so the cost per scan is higher. The pad and the power work cost about the same either way, because you pay for them.

If the volume stays after the project, a purchase can beat repeated rentals. Many rentals can convert to a purchase. Amber Diagnostics can often apply rent payments to the price. Refurbished 1.5T systems and 3.0T systems are the buy path for a fixed room. The current mobile rental list is 1.5T. Do not plan a 3.0T mobile unit from that list.

You insure the equipment, your staff, and patients. Cyber liability insurance is part of the rental. Most facilities add the unit to an existing policy. The certificate of insurance names Amber Diagnostics. Early carrier review can prevent a delivery delay.

Amber Diagnostics is based in Orlando, Florida. It operates a 25,000 square foot FDA-certified facility. It delivers rental units throughout the continental United States. Florida and the Southeast have the strongest coverage and faster regional response times. Equipment sales can be international. Rentals are domestic. That is a coverage statement. It is not a promise of a response time in hours.

Call 407-438-7847 or use the contact form. Bring the phase dates, the pad status, and the power status. A quote without those three items is a guess.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a mobile MRI rental take to set up?

Typical delivery takes two to four weeks after a signed agreement, if a unit is free. Setup usually takes one to three days after placement and power connection. A prepared site usually starts scans within one week after arrival. Emergency placement is possible only when a unit is already staged. The pad, the power feed, and the permits are the usual delay.

Can we run our own technologists?

Yes. Most customers use their own technologists. Amber Diagnostics can supply staffing for a separate price. Applications training is a daily fee and needs two weeks of notice. You still supply a radiologist for general supervision.

What happens if construction is delayed?

Put a month-to-month extension in the agreement before you sign. Amber Diagnostics offers that extension after the initial term. Price it before the crane is late. A hopeful end date is not an extension clause.

What power and pad does the trailer need?

Supply a level concrete or asphalt pad and 480V, three-phase, 200A service at the pad. Allow about 53 feet for the trailer, 70 to 80 feet with the tractor, and more than 100 feet to back in. Keep 14 feet of overhead clearance and 10 to 15 feet clear on the door side. Keep an 8-foot magnetic exclusion zone from the trailer walls. You pay for the pad, the electrical work, and the permits.

Does the monthly rate include a technologist?

No. The MRI rate of $32,000 to $55,000 per month excludes a technologist, taxes, your insurance, physicist testing, and ACR support. Delivery is $9,000 and setup is $3,500 unless a waiver applies. Parts and labor for the scanner and trailer are in the rental.

What if the renovation also takes CT offline?

Rent CT on a separate agreement. A mobile MRI rental does not scan CT. Amber Diagnostics offers mobile CT and mobile PET/CT for three, six, and 12 months. A 12-month term on those two modalities waives delivery and setup. Each PET/CT trailer in the reference includes a hot lab and a dual-head CT injector.

Sources

Amber Diagnostics rental reference, September 25, 2026: models, rates, terms, site needs, and service hours.

Amber Diagnostics mobile MRI rental page and mobile CT rental page.

Prabhakar AM et al., Journal of the American College of Radiology, 2016.

ACR-AAPM MR equipment performance standard, revised 2024.

Quality Shielding, MRI Room Construction Guide, updated May 2, 2026.