Veterinary practice whether general veterinary hospitals, ambulatory/mobile clinics or specialized referral hospitals receive a variety of cases ranging from enquiries, routine check up to emergency and critical care cases. It is important for the management to improve on workflow and systems to avoid staff burn out, client dissatisfaction and definite suffering of the practice bottom line hence its sustainability.
Veterinary practice management software
Practice management system/software can improve consistency and efficiency in the treatments, tests and case follow ups. Grouping of services by creating medical protocol on the practice system will reduce the time spend by the doctors explaining and dictating all the details of each case seen. This will also improve on invoicing and payment collections while providing best clinical care. Veterinary practice management software will help in several routine activities;
- Before the appointment
The front office can pick the main complain and advice the client on the possible tests if any. This will be booked on the system and the doctor on duty is able to make the necessary arrangements to see the client.
- Schedule appointment
Practice system will be able to keep the appointment for everyone to know at what time the client is expected. Appointment should be encouraged and keep a few slots for emergency. Walk in can be chaotic and waste a lot of time
- Get ready for the appointment
Since all the bookings are made in advance then the team and the veterinarian on duty can prepare for any sample collection of any specialized test required
- Bundle services
Practice management software will help group the standard treatment protocol hence improving clinical care
- Plan for discharge
Discharge can be planned with all the take home medications as well as any specialized care needed or follow ups
- Book follow ups and reminders
Most clinics will loss on follow ups if they are not booked correctly or not booked at all.
- Stock flow
Veterinary practice consumables can be overwhelming to manage. However, with the use of the veterinary practice software you can see advance what is running out and what to stock more or what to stop stocking at all. This kind of close management will help in reducing wastage in consumables
Attitude based staffing
A great percentage of veterinary staff hired have the skill, but the attitude is wrong. This can make even the most efficient employees inefficient or make the whole team fail. What somebody knows may change but what they are may never change. When hiring consider soft skills such as team builder, communicator, problem solver as much as you consider the technical skills. People with great attitude are more likely to adapt in a new culture and build winning team.
Continuous staff training
Veterinary professionals are required to satisfy certain continuous professional development point for the them to be able to retain their name with the veterinary boards or councils. Though this training is good in keeping up to date with the new scientific methods and practice advancements every practice should have their in-house training depending on their needs. To keep up with the competition training of customer care, management and communication should feature in the practice training courses. For new employees its important for them to understand the practice culture, core belief and its mission statement. All the staff should have a clear guideline of what is expected of them. Training will reduce costly turnover, improve efficiency and benefit everyone in the practice as a new labour force
Plan to delegate
Do it all are likely to be perfectionists or excuses like I will do it faster, nobody else can do it better, I will do it easier and in the right way etc. Lack of delegation may mean lack of trust or not believing your team, and this can be a morale killer to the team members. You should be able to select wisely for the willing, competent and skilled person to delegate the task and set your expectations straights. Make sure there free and open communication to enable the person whom the task is delegated to perform and learn. This process will make you more comfortable to delegate while making the employees feel valuable. The time saved by delegating can be used to improve other areas where your most needed or have more time for future strategic thinking for the practice
Allocate duties without overlap
Efficient is when every staff in the veterinary clinic or hospital does what they are supposed to do at the right time in the correct place. Work categorization in a veterinary hospital involves about half of the work is done by doctors bringing in the active income and the other half is done by the support staff which brings the passive income. The support staff may include the front desk people, handlers, laboratory technicians and veterinary nurses. The whole system cannot work effectively without each other. so, let no doctor do the support staff work and vice versa. When it comes to veterinary clinic staff each staff is quite specialized based on the context and the most logical strategy is to let every staff do what they are supposed to do. This brings abouts employee engagement and job satisfaction with good results on efficiency.
Avoid mixed messages on wellness plans
Clinics and hospitals normally develop wellness plans. These wellness plans educate the clients or prospects on how to take care of their fur-family members. These may include puppy feeding plans or general diets for different age groups, routine vaccination and worming plans, safe grooming advice, flea and tick control. Advice regarding such issues should be written in simple terms and be communicated to all staff to avoid client confusion before, during and after their appointment visit or enquiries. The wellness plans should make sure the client gets peace of mind, improves the quality of life of the patient, they should be logical, practical and affordable and above all prevent diseases and reduce patients visits to the clinic or the hospital. The staff need to be trained in advance and often so that everybody is onboard when it comes to client advice on wellness plans
System integration and Tech support
There is increasing demand for better patient care and client satisfaction. Veterinarians are required to use the ever-changing technology to make their work more efficient and reliable by use of computers, servers, laboratory and imaging equipment’s. These equipment’s will require integration within your veterinary practice software for centralized access by the clinic staff without moving from one room to another. Integration will save time and make it easy to manage the data or results received from all the diagnostic equipment’s. A reliable technology support service with an understanding of the challenges faced by veterinary clinics and hospitals when it comes to hardware, devices and software will be of great importance to make sure every process run smoothly or be assured it will be restored incase of breakdown as soon as possible. Some of the services you may be looking for is data archiving and data protection to avoid loss of any clinic or hospital data. The current situation of telemedicine requires virtual workplace environment to satisfy this market requirement change. The support service provider should be able to offer you round the clock tech support, installation and maintenance of the software and hardware’s. if need arises relocation and setup of the systems, cloud computing and automated backups and recovery. Depending on the size of the clinic or hospital these services may be outsourced or a support department within the practice operation be developed though this may not be economical for most practices. Therefore, outsourcing is most likely reasonable strategy to use to improve efficiency on systems use and integration.