
The baby MRI: shrinking tech to help save newborn lives - angrymouse
https://mosaicscience.com/story/baby-mri-premature-brain-scan-tech?utm_source=Twitter
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sbierwagen
Nice long-form advertisement from GE. Since NHS is taxpayer-funded, you have
to sell the general public on a new million dollar MRI machine of questionable
clinical utility. Especially since there are other MRI machines in the same
hospital that do the same exact thing.

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chiph
In the US, many states require hospitals to file a "Certificate of Need"
before they're allowed to buy a new MRI (or operate a helicopter ambulance
service, etc). The reasoning is to prevent overlapping service and reduce
costs. But really it reduces resiliency and availability -- if the lone
machine in the county is down for repairs, you don't want to be transporting a
patient across the state to get a scan done.

Edit: Found list of states with CON laws:
[http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/con-certificate-of-
need-...](http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/con-certificate-of-need-state-
laws.aspx)

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rsync
Wait - you mean if I start a private hospital, funded privately, owned
privately, I might not be able to buy (whatever medical doo-dads I want) for
that hospital ?

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chiph
You might not even be able to open an emergency department or maternity ward
if there is one "close enough" according to the state regulators.

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paulddraper
So the solution to high medical costs is limiting the supply?

I guess if it works for rent, it'll work for medicine. </s>

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chiph
Ironically, the states without CON laws help those that do have them, by
allowing increased sales and thus lowering the unit costs.

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sogen
This is great great news for my family, thanks angrymouse!

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NicoJuicy
Deleted because of downvotes instead of discussing it.

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maxerickson
I'm inferring what you said from replies, but I think your concern can be
applied to pretty much all medical care.

If we vaccinate -> mutants with natural resistance have to compete with the
susceptible.

Antibiotics -> People with strong immune systems and good hygiene have to
compete with dirty weaklings.

Treatment of heart disease -> people with bad habits and bad genetics live
longer, gather more resources for their descendants.

And on and on.

(Of course I'm being a little sarcastic above but I certainly don't mean to
mock those that benefit greatly from medical intervention, I'm one of them)

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sxg
I think this situation is a little different and more complex than the
examples you're comparing. I've worked in a NICU, and I've seen that many of
the babies in it stay for several months at a time. Keeping these babies alive
can be extremely expensive, and while considering costs in these situations is
ugly, it is something that we have to do. Along with the costs, we have to
consider the outcomes for these babies. We've only been able to keep babies
born at ~20 weeks alive for a short time in medical history - we don't have a
great idea about the long term outcome for them. We know that many of these
babies are still alive, but we also know that many of them die very young from
complications of pre-maturity like underdeveloped lungs, brain hemorrhage,
necrosis of the GI tract, congenital heart defects, and sepsis.

The right thing to do isn't clear cut in this situation. Going to great
lengths to save or prolong every baby's life isn't clearly a good thing, but
neither is refusing care for premature babies.

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TorKlingberg
True, but I think this is actually what an MRI can help with. If you can see
soon after birth that a baby has suffered serious brain damage, you can avoid
getting the parents' hopes up, just to have them crushed later.

