PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants
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 Desktop/End-User Software
Nomination Title: PetRays Accelerator
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
Accelerator.” The PetRays Accelerator runs as a service on the veterinary
clinics computer and acts as a relay between the clinics digital x-ray
equipment and the PetRays PACS system.
The PetRays Accelerator uses stand DICOM compression and rapidly transmits the
images to PetRays so that the radiologist report can be turned around to treat
critically ill animals. In many instances, the PetRays Accelerator can send
images 10-15 times faster than the native PACS system in the clinic. The
PetRays Accelerator has one function only, to speed transmission of medical
images to the specialists. This one function decreases report turnaround time
and saves lives.
The PetRays Accelerator is just one of the proprietary programs that separates
PetRays from all of its competitors in the veterinary telemedicine market.
PetRays’ proprietary software has been deployed for clients on multiple clinic
computers with a total deployment by the end of 2010 at over 5,500 individual
installations with an estimated total number of unique users of greater than
50,000.
The PetRays DICOM Sender, a program to transfer non-standard imaging formats to
PetRays, and the sister program to the PetRays Accelerator, has won People’s
Choice Awards in prior years. The PetRays Accelerator is the newest software
product to be introduced to the market by PetRays.
Graphically or website wise, there is really nothing to include with this
nomination.
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 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