At RSNA 2017 in Chicago, FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A., Inc., is unveiling its brand new suite of solutions for pediatric patients. Each solution was designed specifically to combat the challenges associated with treating children while focusing on efficiency, low radiation dose and convenience.

The Radiology Department at Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, didn’t need a nudge from Washington, D.C., to upgrade to digital radiography (DR). With one exception, the department’s x-ray rooms were fully DR-capable as of last year; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said it would start reducing payments for analog X-ray in 2017 and for computed radiography (CR) in 2018.

She did it once then and she’s done it again. In 1989, Mary Lou Catania, RN, brought modern mammography to the women of California’s Monterey Peninsula when she founded the Mammography Center of Monterey. 

Delivering key images, reports and patient data to the point of diagnosis and care is the Holy Grail of radiology and many other specialties today. Having the correct information for the patient at the right time for the radiologist or referring physician starts with having the right viewer.

Eight years ago, Women’s Imaging Associates in Birmingham, Ala., was a small, well-respected mammography practice serving six OB/GYN offices in its area. Today, having embraced a 100% telemedicine model, its three fulltime breast specialists read images for 22 client facilities scattered around the U.S.—not only OB offices but also outpatient imaging centers and hospitals large and small. 

Being a radiologist today can feel a bit like being on the Starship Enterprise: you have all these Star-Trek-like tools at your disposal – devices and applications with the ability to produce incredibly sophisticated digital images and insights that we couldn’t have imagined even twenty years ago. 

The imaging staff at Androscoggin Valley Hospital (AVH) in Berlin, N.H., knew the time had come to up their x-ray game when their 11-year-old computed radiography (CR) system began needing new imaging plates and maintenance. What they didn’t know was how fast, easy and cost-effective it could be to upgrade to superior digital radiography (DR) just by investing in the right DR detectors. In 2015, following comprehensive research, that’s exactly what they did.

Holland, 1931. Bernard George Ziedses des Plantes worked hard on the world’s first tomosynthesis machine, publishing a paper on the device he called a Planigraph. His clinical results were presented at the 1931 meeting of the Netherlands Society of Electrology and Radiology in Amsterdam, and the first commercial device was produced just a few years later.