PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants
Company: PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants, The Woodlands, TX
Company Description: PetRays is the recognized leader in veterinary telemedicine services. The PetRays team consists of 42 staff and veterinary specialists. The telemedicine services offered by PetRays are specifically designed to help veterinarians improve the speed and quality of animal healthcare.
Nomination Category: Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best New Service of the Year
Nomination Title: PetRays 30 Minute STAT Service
Describe for the judges the nominated service, including its features and benefits (up to 500 words). Include in this section the date during the eligibility period on which the service was first introduced to the marketplace:
PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants (PetRays) makes Board Certified
Veterinary Specialists available to virtually every veterinary practice world
wide. PetRays was founded in 2006 with the mission of providing high quality
healthcare to animals and domestic pets in a timely manner and with a great
sense of urgency.
In 2008, PetRays provided a priority level of service that would essentially
guarantee a specialist consultation delivered to the referring clinic in one
hour or less. Through multiple surveys and customer feedback in 2008, it was
clear that a new service was necessary to meet the demands of the veterinary
industry and, more specifically, the PetRays clients. In 2009 -2010, PetRays
made the new 30 minute STAT service available for those clinics that needed
results in real time. The clinic that requests this high priority handling is
charged a nominal fee to ensure its priority processing.
The typical client that chooses this is a clinic that has an animal under
anesthesia and needs immediate results or an emergency clinic that may be
treating a critically ill domestic pet, livestock, thoroughbred race horse, or
even an ill stricken seeing guide dog for the blind. Since the introduction of
this service, PetRays has experienced approximately 18% of all consults being
ordered with STAT priority.
The STAT service has proven essential in many instances in helping
veterinarians make life saving treatment decisions that simply could not have
been made prior to the implementation and availability of this invaluable
service. This STAT service and handling of consults allows domestic pets to be
seen and treated with the same level of skill and with the same sense of
urgency as the companion pet’s human owner would receive at the local
community hospital. This STAT service further helps PetRays strive to achieve its
previously stated mission.
While competitors in the veterinary telemedicine market offer “STAT” service,
the competition does not offer it a 30 minute turnaround. In human trauma
centers, trauma patients are processed and treated with the greatest sense of
urgency as “The Golden Hour” is well known to be the short window of
opportunity to save lives and make a positive impact on patients who have
immediately life threatening injuries. “The Golden Hour” applies to
immediately life threatening injuries to domestic pets as well. Therefore, the
30 minute turnaround time is not only a valuable service, but may be the
critical step in treating a pet owners injured “best friend” in time to make a
positive impact and help achieve a positive outcome.
Anyone who has ever lost a loving pet understands the importance of this
invaluable service that PetRays makes available to virtually every veterinarian
world wide who chooses to make PetRays a part of their team. Every PetRays
employee is also a pet owner. The PetRays team processes every STAT request
with the greatest sense of urgency and treats these animals as if each was one
of our own personal pets.
In summary, PetRays STAT service saves lives and only nominally increases the
cost of healthcare.
List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, logos, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:
PetRays wins people's choice award for STAT service
http://www.youtube.com/user/petraystelemedicine#p/u/0/KVvNytUzOPA
Trauma's Golden Hour for review of concept
http://www.traumafoundation.org/restricted/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/
plugins/filemanager/files/About%20Trauma%20Care_Golden%20Hour.pdf
History of Trauma Centers and Trauma Systems
The Golden Hour Concept
http://www.traumaspecialists.com/history_tc_4_01.htm
Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the team that developed the nominated new service (up to 100 words):
PetRays was co-founded by Melissa Tugwell. Additionally, Anne Bahr, DVM is
the Chief Medical Officer and also one of the owners as well. Since PetRays
provides medical services, there are personnel that run the medical aspect and
personnel that run the business aspects. Dr. Bahr oversees all aspects of the
medical services while the day to day marketing and sales efforts are handled out
of the Texas office. Dr. Bahr is a ACVR Board Certified Veterinary Radiologist
who has held faculty appointments at Texas A & M University and ran the
radiology residency program at A & M as well.