February 25, 2016 — The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) announced that the Maryland Proton Treatment Center (MPTC) has treated its first cancer patients with proton therapy at a new $200 million facility.

The 110,000-square-foot center, which houses a 90-ton cyclotron, is the first in the eastern United States to offer ProBeam image guided intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) — the most advanced and precise form of radiation therapy.

While healthcare organizations are making great strides to manage patient data within an electronic health record (EHR), imaging data from across the continuum of care is often widely unmanaged, or even missing from the patient’s electronic health history. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) have aligned to form the HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Workgroup with enterprise imaging thought leaders to tackle these challenges.

February 25, 2016 — Apollo PACS has announced it has changed its name to Apollo Enterprise Imaging Corp. to better convey its expertise. Originally focused on specialty solutions, Apollo Enterprise Imaging Corp. has significantly expanded its enterprise imaging know-how as it developed Apollo EPMM (Enterprise Patient Multimedia Manager).

February 24, 2016 — The addition of chemotherapy to radiation therapy (RT) improves survival rates among a subset of elderly head and neck cancer patients, according to new research. Specifically, chemoradiation is beneficial for those ages 71 to 79 with low comorbidity scores and advanced disease stage, according to the research presented at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium.