Diagnostic Services
Full range of diagnostic procedures
Prairie Hills Animal Hospital offers a full range of diagnostic procedures through either our full suite of in-house equipment or our partnership with a local, send-out diagnostic laboratory. For those medical cases requiring more rapid answers we offer same day, in-house ultrasound, fully digital radiology, and a wide range of blood, fecal, and urine analysis. For less urgent cases, we have partnered with a send-out diagnostic laboratory. This laboratory offers a wider range of testing than we are able to offer in-house. Additionally, our Prairie Hills doctors have worked together with the lab to build diagnostic packages so that we are able to pass some savings on to you!
Ultrasound
Prairie Hills is proud to offer ultrasound in our practice. Ultrasound is a non-invasive imaging technique allowing internal structures to be visualized. Ultrasound can be used for a variety of services including emergency assessment of internal body cavities, aiding in safe collection of urine from the bladder and samples from organs or masses, and in assessing changes in internal organs.
Digital Radiology
Radiology, often referred to as X-ray, is an imaging technique which allows black and white pictures to be taken of internal organs. Our fully digitalized system means that our high-quality radiographs are developed within seconds to be reviewed by our experienced doctors. The radiographs of your pet will also be sent for review by a board-certified radiologist to ensure that your pet receives the best care possible.
IDEXX Laboratory Suite
We offer a wide range of in-house diagnostics, including the ability for same-day blood work such as complete blood counts and full chemistry panels, and urine analysis, thanks to our wide range of IDEXX laboratory equipment.
Vitals monitoring: blood pressure, EKG
All of our surgical patients enjoy the benefit of continuous vital monitoring. This includes non-invasive blood pressure, EKG, heart rate, respiratory rate, and temperature. In addition, we offer these monitoring devices as needed for non-surgical situations, such as critical hospitalized patients in our ICU, cardiac work ups, and outpatient monitoring of patients with or at high risk for high blood pressure among others.
Eye pressures
Monitoring of ocular pressure is important for patients with eye abnormalities and in older pets who are at a higher risk for developing things like glaucoma. The non-invasive TonoVet is a piece of equipment that we use here at Prairie Hills which accurately monitors eye pressures in awake animals without the use of sedatives or numbing agents in most animals.
Digital Dental Radiology
Dental care is a huge component of keeping your pet healthy, and a large portion of dental disease occurs undetected under the gumline. Dental radiology, or X-rays, allows us to visualize the roots of the teeth to detect potentially painful abnormalities under the gumline. They also give us information needed to safely plan oral surgery and tooth extractions. Dental radiographs are taken of all of your pet’s teeth during every dental cleaning and before and after any tooth extractions and are included in our dental packages.
IDEXX Diagnostic Laboratory
Our clinic is happy to partner with IDEXX reference laboratory where we send blood, urine, and other samples. As there is a 24-48 hour turnaround time for external lab work, it is only used for non-urgent cases. Reasons we use an outside laboratory:
- As a larger laboratory they offer a wide range of testing.
- We send samples for more advance confirmation testing of what is offered in our in-house laboratory.
- We have partnered with IDEXX to offer package discounts on commonly used non-urgent lab work. Packages such as wellness screens, pre-anesthetic blood work, and certain medication monitoring can be offered at a lower price when sent to the outside lab.
- Sending lab work to our outside lab rather than running it in house frees up our staff to spend more time directly working with you and caring for your pets.