SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Eklin Medical Systems, a leading developer of digital radiography (DR), PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) and practice management software (VIA(TM)) for veterinary care practices, announced the company has appointed Dennis Ballance, DVM, as division manager of the newly-formed Eklin Data Services Division. Ballance has served as a consultant and executive for both academic and industry information technology (IT) development. He is currently co-chair of the industry’s DICOM Standards Committee along with William Hornof, DVM, DACVR, Eklin’s chief medical officer.
“Dr. Ballance is uniquely qualified for this critical position given his education and experience in veterinary care, informatics and IT,” said Hornof. “Our goal for all of our products is to support the same open industry standards for digital information in veterinary care as now exists in human medicine. As the demand for our open standards technology accelerates, we look to Dennis to help drive our new Data Services Division in order to help provide innovative solutions to meet this demand.”
Prior to Eklin, Ballance served as director of hospital information technology at the University of California, Davis, Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH). He also has consulted with industry software companies and the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at North Carolina State University. He is the author and co-author of several published, peer-reviewed veterinary medicine articles focusing on digital imaging and data management technology. Ballance received his bachelor of arts in Zoology from UC Davis, where he graduated cum laude. He later received his doctor of veterinary medicine degree from UC Davis as well.
Eklin provides a number of digital and data management products including DR, PACS and Practice Information Management software (VIA) for small animal, exotic and equine practices. Employing the Eklin Digital Practice(R), products and services, veterinarians can obtain images in seconds, then store, review and archive the images and other medical records at the touch of a button. It also offers sophisticated image processing tools, giving the clinician much greater depth of information that can be enlarged or manipulated for far better detail, resulting in closer scrutiny of potential areas of concern.
“I am excited to be joining the leader in open standard digital technology for the veterinary medicine market,” said Ballance. “Eklin has been a significant advocate for open DICOM standards which gives veterinary practices the freedom to choose any vendor’s DICOM modality and be assured it will seamlessly integrate into the practice enterprise. This is extremely critical for a practice’s future growth by ensuring economical, workflow and clinical efficiencies.”
All of Eklin’s digital technologies are built on published DICOM standards, the medical industry’s digital imaging and storage protocols. This allows practices to select products from multiple vendors which follow the same open standard and be able to seamlessly integrate these other digital systems within the practice. The new Data Service Division will offer open standard solutions such as remote data storage (EklinVault(TM)) and RapidPACS(TM) Web Edition image management.
The company also announced the appointment of Larry Sullivan as director of corporate IT and Telecom services for Eklin and the new division. Sullivan is a six sigma, certified black belt, quality control professional with more than 15 years managing IT, Telecom and network departments ranging from Cisco to Network Appliance. At the latter, he was the six sigma program manager for worldwide Telecom functions. Sullivan attended San Diego and San Francisco State universities.
“With a growth rate of more than 45 percent in 2007 alone, Eklin has now become a recognized leader in open standard digital imaging and data management systems,” said Gary R. Cantu, founder and CEO of Eklin. “We have especially seen increased demand for additional data management services such as the web edition of RapidPACS. This is why we felt it was time to create a specific division dedicated to addressing these needs led by experienced informatics and IT executives. Dennis and Larry are eminently qualified to lead this drive, building on our open standard foundation to ensure optimal solutions for our clients.”
About Eklin Medical Systems, Inc.
With hundreds of systems installed in private practices and universities around the globe, Eklin Medical Systems, Inc. is one of the world’s leading providers of veterinary PACS, practice management software (VIA) and digital radiography products. The company focuses on applications where speed, portability, and increased practice efficiency are critically important. Eklin is a privately-held company headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and can be contacted at 800-819-5538 or visit http://www.eklin.com.
lhallwyler@eklin.com
CONTACT: Laurie Hallwyler of Eklin Medical Systems, +1-650-248-9081,
lhallwyler@eklin.com
Web site: http://www.eklin.com/
