Fujitsu and Anicom Collaborate for Pet Care Cloud Business

Tokyo, September 25, 2013

Fujitsu Limited and Anicom Holdings, Inc. today announced their agreement to jointly develop and sell medical-support cloud services to animal hospitals in Japan. The two companies will use their strengths, in ICT and veterinary medicine, respectively, to develop new technology-based services and build systems that support the provision of high-quality veterinary medicine at animal hospitals. 

Their first offering will be a significant upgrade to Anicom Receptor, Anicom's existing customer-management software, now in use by 1,800 animal hospitals in Japan. The new version, which will be offered as a cloud service, will add significant features, including electronic medical records as well as other medical-support and business-support features. To be jointly developed by Anicom and Fujitsu, the new service, called Anicom Receptor F Series, will be the first medical-support service for animal hospitals in the industry, and will be available beginning November 2013. In addition to enabling animal hospitals to use statistical information gathered from other hospitals registered for the service via the cloud, the new service will facilitate care coordination and the sharing of diagnostic information between these hospitals. It will also enhance work efficiency, all of which is expected to result in greater customer satisfaction.

The two companies aim to help create a society in which pet owners can feel more secure about the well-being of their pets. The two companies also plan to develop offerings for other pet-related businesses, including groomers, pet hotels, and pet shops.

In Japan today, the number of pet dogs and cats, at 21.28 million, has surpassed the number of children under the age of 15, at 16.49 million (source: Anicom domestic-animal white paper, 2012). This creates more demand for high-quality care at animal hospitals that prevent and treat illnesses, infectious diseases and injuries.

At most animal hospitals, individual veterinarians are generalists covering many fields of medicine, and each animal hospital is on its own when it comes to managing wide-ranging medical information, monitoring illness trends, and upgrading medical technology. In addition to providing veterinary care during the day, there is a need to provide late-night emergency care and sophisticated services, such as MRIs, and therefore a system in place for secondary treatment at other facilities is a necessity. Going forward, with advances in the use of ICT and greater coordination among animal hospitals, there will be an important need to quickly obtain and share the latest medical technologies, case information, and case history of animal patients. There will also be a need to lessen the veterinarian's workload and explain treatments to pet owners in an easy-to-understand way.

Fujitsu and Anicom are responding to these growing needs by joining forces to develop and sell cloud services to animal hospitals, and to expand the reach of high-quality medical-support services available to animal hospitals. They aim to build an open infrastructure that will enable the pet industry to share and effectively use expertise that is now scattered throughout different animal hospitals.

Previous Pet-Related Collaboration

Anicom is Japan's leading provider of pet insurance, with some 400,000 policyholders in the country. Group company Anicom Pafe currently provides 1,800 animal hospitals in Japan with Anicom Receptor customer-management software.

As part of Fujitsu's ongoing efforts to contribute to business and social innovation through the use of ICT, and as an opportunity to contribute to animal hospitals and others in the pet-related sector, the company made its first foray into promoting the use of cloud technologies to animal hospitals in 2010 when it began practical testing of a regional veterinary alliance with the Tokyo Jonan Regional Veterinary Medicine Promotional Association. Since then the company has been involved in a wide range of activities in the veterinary field, having worked with Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases and leading veterinarians in a joint study to enable surveying of diseases that can be communicated between humans and animals. It has supported the post-disaster animal-rescue centers in Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures to protect and manage people's pets impacted by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011.

Now the two companies are joining forces, bringing Anicom's know-how in the field of veterinary medicine and its extensive sales channel together with Fujitsu's cloud-building technology and product-development capabilities, to develop new services for animal hospitals and other pet-related businesses. The Anicom Receptor F Series animal-hospital support service has already been undergoing practical testing at the Synergy Animal General Hospital in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture.

Overview of Anicom Receptor F Series

Anicom Receptor F Series is a comprehensive cloud service for primary-care veterinary facilities as well as secondary-care facilities providing emergency overnight treatment or advanced forms of treatment.

 

1. Medical care support service

Provides care using statistical information from the cloud
Users of this service will be able to refer to statistical information accumulated in the cloud from all participating animal hospitals, helping them to improve the level of treatment and treatment techniques that in the past had been handled individually by each animal hospital, giving them access to the latest treatment techniques and case information.

Treatment-support to provide pet owners with easy-to-understand treatment information
The service offers tools such as explanatory video and graphics of illnesses, medical histories, and medical information on each disease, all of which can be accessed in an easy-to-understand format on screen to help veterinarians explain even complex treatments to pet owners.

Shares treatment information internally to increase pet-owner satisfaction
Electronic intake records, prescriptions, treatment information, and bookkeeping are all tied together to make the animal hospital run more efficiently and to avoid keeping pet owners waiting.

2. Medical administration support service

Building on the easy-to-use and easy-to-understand Anicom Receptor series, the new service enables the administrative work of animal hospitals, from front-desk intake to the issuance of treatment details, to be handled smoothly.

3. Support for multiple locations

The service makes it possible for an animal hospital that operates multiple locations to share customer information between locations, ensuring that whichever hospital a customer visits, it will have their full history, helping the animal hospital provide the customer with greater peace of mind.

4. Regional veterinary alliance support service

The service makes it possible for primary-care facilities, overnight clinics, and secondary-care facilities to share diagnostic records, for one facility to request treatment at another facility, and for treatment results to be relayed back. This helps to ensure appropriate treatment when pets cannot visit their usual veterinarian, such as, for example, when they need to go to an overnight clinic in an emergency.

5. Medical handbook service

This service makes it possible for pet owners to check test results, dietary instructions and instructions for medications from their personal computer or smartphone. This can be used to accurately convey medical information to family members, or for all family members to be educated about a pet's medical situation and medical needs. It can also be used for two-way communication where a veterinarian follows up with the pet owner after treatment.

6. Business-target analysis, treatment-information analysis

Analyzing the diagnostic and management information collected in the cloud, the service can propose ways to improve management by getting a better grasp of visits to animal hospitals, and aids in enhanced medical services by checking the diagnostic processes of a customer's regular animal hospital.

Anicom Receptor F Series: Pricing and Availability

Anicom Receptor F Series: Pricing and Availability

Product name	Price (incl tax)	Availability
Medical care support service	JPY 13,000/month and up	November 2013
Medical administration support service	JPY 5,750/month and up	November 2013

Pricing as of September 25, 2013

Anicom Receptor F Series: Sales Targets

Service to 3,000 animal hospitals by end of March 2017