At Health Datapalooza, the Acting Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Andy Slavitt announced a new policy that will allow innovators and entrepreneurs to access CMS data, such as Medicare claims. Under the policy, those interested may conduct approved research that will ultimately improve care and provide better tools that should benefit healthcare consumers through a greater understanding of what the data says works best in healthcare. The data will not allow the patient’s identity to be determined, but will provide the identity of the providers of care. CMS will begin accepting innovator research requests in September 2015.

For years, the radiology industry has focused on reducing, or eliminating patient exposure to radiation. Recently, the industry has shifted attention to the cumulative effect radiation exposure has over the course of a physician’s career.

Children's National Health System has installed six Agfa HealthCare DX-D 100 mobile digital radiography (DR) systems and two DX-D 600 full-room DR suites to transition two X-ray rooms from computed radiography (CR) to DR. The installation followed a thorough review of several DR technologies in which Agfa HealthCare's DX-D 600 system was determined as well-suited for the hospital's pediatric patients given its potential to reduce patient radiation exposure as much as 60 percent. Additionally, the DX-D 600 was chosen for its ability to accurately and automatically perform full-length spine imaging, which pediatric patients often require for scoliosis evaluations. The DX-D 100s were selected to provide a more efficient means to image patients.