The first thing that hits you when you walk in Elekta's Learning and Innovation Center (LINC) located in Atlanta, is that there is a lot of history here.

From the Leksell Stereotactic System invented in 1949, to the Leskell Gamma Knife Perfexion - the advances in med-tech through the lens of a once small but now sizeable company are evident.

But to merely think of this as a repository of the firm's greatest technological achievements and advancements in the treatment of cancer would be egregiously wrong. LINC is a learning center that links the past to future innovation.

The 25,000 square foot facility that boasts lecture rooms and all of the firm's latest technology is instead a learning destination. LINC was launched during the American Society for Radiology (Fairfax, Virginia) meeting held in Atlanta in September. Last month, Medical Device Daily toured the facility, which boasts some of the companies flagship technology, such as the new Versa HD linear accelerator and Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion. Enhancing the experience, students have access to the Versa HD vault, which is large enough for hands-on learning.

"Elekta's really putting forward education and training for patient safety as a first priority," Ian Dickson, Elekta's CFO, told Medical Device Daily. "The company has grown so rapidly in the last four or five years – there's been a lot of organic growth but also through acquisition. Our education programs are pretty dispersed around the U.S. so we saw this to really get the value proposition and to put safe training and education on the map for us as an organization into the radiation community we needed to centralize it, and that's what we did by bringing it here into the Perimeter area here in Atlanta."

Simply put, Elekta is on the right path to innovation. You can't go forward without investing in the future of your technology.  Giving healthcare professionals the advanced training that they might need on Elekta's wide array of products accomplishes that goal.