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PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants

ABA11 Winner / How to Enter

Company: PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants, The Woodlands, TX
Company Description: PetRays is the recognized leader in veterinary telemedicine services. The telemedicine services offered by PetRays are specifically designed to help veterinarians improve the speed and quality of animal healthcare.
Nomination Category: New Product Awards & Product Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: New Product or Service of the Year - Computer Software - New Version

Nomination Title: PetRays DICOM Sender 2.3.2

    Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 500 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and sales to date. You may include hyperlinks to product photos and data sheets. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

        PetRays provides services to over 5000 veterinarians world wide.  The final
product of PetRays service is the consultant’s report of findings.  These
findings are used to treat critically ill animals.  PetRays developed and
maintains a proprietary radiology information system (RIS) to facilitate
communication with clients and PetRays personnel.  PetRays RIS system is a
secure web based platform that clients can access from any computer in the
world as long as they have an internet connection.

        However, in order to generate a report and provide critical imaging results to
veterinarians, the individual veterinary clinics must be able to transmit the x-
ray images to PetRays.   In theory, this should be a very simple task and
fairly simple for the clinics to do.  However, in reality, this task can be
quite complicated since most, if not all of the x-ray equipment and PACS
systems in the veterinary market are not standardized and have not achieved FDA
approval as it is not required for veterinary equipment as it is for human
equipment.  This lack of standardization creates extreme difficulties in
transmitting the images to the PetRays PACS system at a multitude of veterinary
clinics.

        In order to address this problem, the PetRays development team contracted a
third party software developer to write the code and deploy the “PetRays DICOM
Sender.”  This program will essentially allow the images from virtually every
veterinary clinic to be transmitted to PetRays as a DICOM file so that they can
be recognized by the PetRays PACS system. 

        The DICOM Sender can convert the following file types to the standard DICOM 3.0
file format and successfully transmit to PetRays:

 .pmb
.pgm
.ppm
.jpg
.jpeg
.tiff
.tif
.bmp
.ico
.emf
.wmf
.dcm
.dic

        Additionally, as new file types are encountered, they can be added to and made
compatible as well. 

        The PetRays DICOM Sender is just one of the proprietary programs that separates
PetRays from all of its competitors in the veterinary telemedicine market.  The
DICOM Sender allows PetRays to be able to provide services to virtually every
veterinary clinic world wide. The PetRays DICOM Sender has been deployed for
clients on multiple clinic computers with a total deployment by the end of 201
at over 5,500 individual installations with an estimated total number of unique
users of greater than 50,000.

        The prior version(2.3.1) of PetRays DICOM Sender is largely responsible for
PetRays winning the “People’s Choice” award for best customer service at the
2010 Stevie Awards for Customer Service.  PetRays received the most votes, over
27,000.  As clinics encountered problems with their x-ray systems, the PetRays
support/service team would deploy the DICOM Sender and all issues were
immediately resolved.

        The PetRays DICOM Sender underwent some revisions throughout the year and at
year end, the program was at version 2.3.2

        Graphically or website wise, there is really nothing to include with this
nomination.   Winning the “People’s Choice” award and getting more votes than
FEDEX, Hilton, Macy’s, etc. speaks for the revolutionary nature of the software
product and the enormous impact on animal care.

    List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, product reviews, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

        PetRays wins the "People's Choice" award at the 4th Stevie Awards for Sales
and Customer Service for "all other industries."
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheStevies#p/u/7/dMitPpMGc8g

        PetRays DICOM Sender prior version wins People's Choice Award
http://www.youtube.com/user/petraystelemedicine#p/u/3/hNccP8mDUfI

    Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed this nominated product or service:

        Melissa Fields Tugwell: PetRays co-founder.  Most recently, she was awarded
Best Young Entrepreneur at the 2009 Stevie’s for Women in Business and 2010
Stevie winner for Sales Director of the Year and the 2010 Sales and Customer
Service Awards.

Pomeroy Smith:  10 years experience in telemedicine.  Serves as the company's
COO.

Frank Powell, MD:  PetRays board member and co-founder.

Anne Bahr , DVM:  Chief Radiologist and Chief Medical Officer for PetRays. 

Joe Casarez:  IT manager, PetRays