One of the Northeast’s major teaching hospitals is an international leader in virtually every area of medicine. It has been the site of pioneering breakthroughs that have improved lives and advanced healthcare around the world. This hospital includes more than 100 outpatient practices with more than 1,000 physicians serving patients from New England, across the United States, and from more than 100 countries around the world.

The move toward value-based reimbursement (VBR) models is putting pressure on healthcare organizations to modernize their IT systems so they can more effectively measure and improve the quality and efficiency of their care. The long-term goal is clear. Organizations need to integrate their devices, applications, and data so that clinicians and administrators have the right information at the right time to deliver the best possible outcomes at the lowest possible cost.

MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington D.C., has begun patient treatments using the RayStation treatment planning system in combination with Mevion’s Hyperscan pencil beam scanning system. This was the world’s first treatment carried out on the Mevion S250i Proton Therapy System, according to Mevion.

Exposure to ultra-high-strength magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may release toxic mercury from amalgam fillings in teeth, according to a new study appearing online in the journal Radiology. The effect was not seen, however, in the lower strength, more commonly used 1.5-Tesla (T) MRI.

Jeffrey Hoffmeister, M.D.

When women reach age 40, an annual mammogram becomes a necessary part of their healthcare ritual — regardless if they have a predisposition to or symptoms of breast cancer. But mammograms are not the only tools in which doctors rely. Other technologies, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are proving valuable for screening, diagnosing and monitoring breast cancer, adding more weapons to the arsenal for both detecting and fighting the disease.

Faith is not based on evidence. Trust is.

Established in 2009, Northern Centre for Cancer Care (NCCC) is the largest center of its kind in the north of England. It provides a regional service for specialized radiotherapy treatments including TBI, TSEI, SRS and pediatrics. The radiation therapy department receives over 4,500 new patient referrals per year. A wide range of treatment techniques is offered, including IMRT, IGRT, total body irradiation, brachytherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, chemoradiation, lung and spine SABR and CHART treatment for lung cancer. NCCC has made substantial investments in state-of-the-art equipment to expand and improve its radiation therapy service. The center is equipped with the latest radiation therapy technology, including new Varian TrueBeam linacs, TomoTherapy, superficial radiation therapy and HDR brachytherapy. RayStation was selected as the optimal treatment planning system and has been used clinically at NCCC since 2016.

Image courtesy of Philips
First Lady Melania Trump recently underwent an interventional radiology (IR) catheter embolization procedure in her kidneys. Also shown is an example of a kidney angiogram to highlight the renal blood vessels during an interventional procedure.

On May 14, 2018, First Lady Melania Trump underwent an embolization procedure for what was called a benign kidney condition in a White House press release. The First Lady’s condition had been previously undisclosed, and the press release offered no further detail, leading to much speculation about the nature of the procedure and why it was needed. Major American news outlets from CBS to NBC to Fox News, and even entertainment outlets like People magazine, ran variations of the headline “What is an embolization?”
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