X-rays are one of the most common medical screening procedures in the United States. They are often relied upon by physicians because they can be used to see what’s inside of someone – for example, whether someone’s lung is punctured, their bones are broken, or if anything isn’t exactly where it’s supposed to be. X-rays are similar to light waves; however, while light can’t pass through objects like doors and human bodies, x-rays can, in fact, pass through most things that aren’t metal.
In 1980, the world saw the first digital X-ray screening tool; the technology was created just short of 100 years after the first X-ray machines were made. Today, most all X-rays are taken using digital equipment instead of their traditional film-using counterparts. This isn’t just because everything is morphing into becoming digital – rather, digital X-ray devices offer practitioners, assistants, and patients several benefits.
Images can be viewed more quickly
Film-based X-ray machines require doctors, nurses, and other users of pictures made with X-ray technology to take the negative image with them into a dark room, turn on a square or rectangular box with a light behind it, place the film against the illuminated box, then interpret the findings of the X-ray-created images. With digital X-ray imaging technology, practitioners can view X-rays as they’re being captured using computers, smartphones, tablets, and other tech devices.
Practitioners can easily share files with one another or attach patients’ pictures to their permanent records
People with injuries often see more than one doctor to help them recover. With traditional X-ray imaging, results have to be enclosed in a light-tight envelope and hand-delivered to other practitioners that need to see such results. Film’s modern counterpart, digital X-rays, makes the sharing of such images so easy that it can be transferred to others within seconds.
Digital x-ray imaging
has long outdated its film-based counterpart because it offers practitioners and patients alike several benefits that they wouldn’t otherwise receive when using film to produce images of the human body using X-rays.
