Innovation Station

Forced to pivot because of COVID-19, the profession learned more lessons about telemedicine. The pandemic exposed clinics and clients to pet-only visits and could lead to the rebranding of relief work.

It’s anything but business as usual in the veterinary profession. Over the past couple of months and likely for the next several months, practices have adapted to a world that looks very different. While each day brought surprises and challenges, there is a sense that practices have implemented protocols, adjusted hours and staffing, and begun […]

Harnessing a select group of clients can help you meet the needs of the next generation and not alienate long-time pet owners.

I received two emails less than 24 hours apart from two very different veterinary clients. One raved about how excited she was about the new program her veterinarian had implemented that would give her 5% off the invoice at each visit. She had gotten a new puppy, the costs were adding up and the discount […]

Now is the time for CE providers and users to demand more from learning experiences and work together to raise the standards.

Creative Disruption columnist Dr. Bob Lester wrote in the last issue about the state of most in-person continuing education. (Read “Always Be Learning” at http://bit.ly/2ZMT7qt.) A lot of CE, he stated, is delivered in dark rooms and 50-minute chunks by a sage on the stage, a format he described as “arguably, the worst adult learning modality.” […]

The move toward biomarker testing is an example of the expansion of preventive, predictive, personalized and participatory animal health care.

Thought leaders in human medicine like Leroy Hood, Ray Kurzweil and Daniel Kraft have been talking about the four P’s of medicine for decades, but only recently have we seen a growing awareness of predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory forms of medicine within veterinary medicine. In particular, at the Veterinary Innovation Summit in April, Jon […]

Veterinary medicine needs more possibilist thinking. Technology holds the key.

In his brilliant book “Factfulness,” physician-statistician Hans Rosling defined “possibilist” as an alternative mindset to an optimist (who simply believes that good outcomes will happen) or a pessimist (who doesn’t spend the energy to imagine good outcomes and who, by the way, is kind of boring). A possibilist instead believes that a strong set of […]

General practitioners, specialists and even students have a role to play in the evolution of telehealth and the elimination of barriers to veterinary services.

Lots of stuff is going on in the world of virtual care as its utilization shifts from innovators to early adopters and becomes more mainstream. Recent articles have shown increased client demand for telehealth services and satisfaction with its use. This past spring, the American Veterinary Medical Association hosted the Veterinary Virtual Care Summit, which […]

The Veterinary Innovation Summit showed that pet health care is moving from reactive and acute to proactive and preventive. You can thank telehealth, wearables and other technology-driven ideas.

When a person blinks or a dog scratches his ear and the event isn’t recorded, it’s a moment in time likely to pass unnoticed and unaccounted for, one in an endless series of moments that have no beginning and no end. But what happens when that moment is recorded and someone is paying attention? When […]

The Veterinary Entrepreneurship Academy is training the next generation of veterinary business leaders.

Inspiration for the Veterinary Entrepreneurship Academy began in the fall of 2010 when Adam Little, then a student at Ontario Veterinary College, had an idea to help veterinary practices connect with their clients through a mobile app. While most of his colleagues were studying physiology, Little was learning about prototyping, pitching and product development. His […]

Whether you support it or not, telehealth is here to stay.

An important moment passed us by without much fanfare. At the Connexity conference in September 2018, the American Animal Hospital Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association jointly produced a how-to guide on telehealth. “The Real-Life Rewards of Virtual Care” outlines step-by-step instructions for implementing telehealth tools, what to consider in terms of technology and […]

Do you know who your clients are calling after hours? You can concede the business to someone else or you can take an active role in meeting their needs.

While the telehealth conversation has largely centered on telemedicine and whether a veterinarian can diagnose a case through digital tools, after-hours triage care — nights, weekends and holidays — is an important but often overlooked consideration for practicing veterinarians. The American Association of Veterinary State Boards recently voted on a new model act of practice […]