How to Streamline Veterinary Workflow

There are three main bottlenecks in most practices (yes, there are lots of potential problems - but ultimately, the vast majority are due to hold ups in the critical pinch-points). If we can streamline these workflows, and smooth out these bottlenecks, we can produce dramatic improvements without increasing anyone’s workload.

1. Booking and changing appointments

How much of your receptionist’s time is spent booking, setting up, changing or explaining appointments? And how much of that is taking place at the same time as they are supposed to be logging a client into the waiting room, taking payment from a client at the desk, and emailing off a history, and picking up an insurance form, and booking someone’s new puppy onto a pet health plan?

That phonecall from Mrs Jones wanting to change her appointment again is going to disrupt the whole process, leaving you with clients waiting (and getting disgruntled), vets not sure what’s happening, and worst of all, nurses having to “help out” rather than actually doing duties that only an RVN or SVN can.

2. Dealing with queries

The same issues apply to people contacting the practice with queries. When the phone goes and someone wants to talk to a vet, is it an emergency that needs triaging? A simple question about follow up care? Someone checking your opening hours? A serious complication that needs dealing with right now? A query about medicine doses? A complaint? Or what? You have no way to know, so all of those phonecalls have to be dealt with as if they were all life-or-death emergencies - because they might be! But once you’re trapped on the phone with Mr Smith who goes on for half an hour, it’s hard to get away without losing a valuable client!

3. The unexpectedly disrupted consult

Now, many of these are the classic “oh, and while I’m here…” moment. You can never eliminate this! In fact, in human medicine, there is a well-recognised phenomenon whereby patients ask their most burning question only on their way out the door. And some will be due to the consulting vet finding something really nasty, turning a routine appointment into an urgent hospitalisation - or even a euthanasia slot.

However, many of these cases - that push us into running late for the rest of the day - are simply due to booking the wrong type of appointment. Perhaps the receptionist misunderstood the client as to what the real problem was, or perhaps the client didn’t feel comfortable explaining it over the phone.

In the same category fit “no-shows” - where an appointment is booked, but the client never turns up. Ironically, these two types never seem to go back to back, where it wouldn’t matter so much! Unfortunately, this ends up with vets and nurses hanging around, knowing there are clients stacking up but not yet arrived to be seen.

An era of solutions

There are simple technological fixes to the first two - and there are tools that can minimise the third!

1. Online appointment booking

Let your clients book their own appointments, online - leaving your receptionists free to deal with only the complicated situations they excel at managing. While there are many systems that permit this, why not integrate it into your communications, letting the client WhatsApp or text in and book an appointment as part of the normal process of contacting the practice?

2. Asynchronous communications with image and video capacity

Don’t leave receptionists or clinical staff hanging on the phone with a non-urgent call when there’s an emergency ringing off the hook… Asynchronous communications - like a text message or WhatsApp - allow the client to send a message, and you can triage and respond to them in order of urgency. 

In fact, it also means one receptionist or nurse can deal with multiple clients simultaneously! A practice dashboard, like that built into Digital Practice, will allow your reception, nursing and vet teams to monitor communications, picking up the ones they need to deal with, and even allocate a conversation to a more suitable member of staff: seamlessly and without dropping all the other plates they’re spinning!

In addition, your practice can use it, equally asynchronously, to update the client on how an inpatient is doing, on how the client’s repeat prescription order is coming on, or when test results arrive - without wasting their time or your staff’s.

3. Great client-practice communication

Better communication means fewer nasty surprises in the consulting room - and with modern communication systems like Digital Practice, you can even ask for a deposit up front, significantly reducing no-shows!

Want to know how Digital Practice can help with all these bottlenecks? Get in touch for a demonstration!

Further reading:

What does Efficiency in a Vet Practice Mean? - IDEXX

Improving productivity and customer experience in veterinary practice