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IDEXX: Contributing to something bigger

® conference in San Diego, California, Bridget Rollins, EMBA, vice president of operations at Thrive Pet Healthcare, described how leaders can create an environment where dynamic tension exists foster insightful feedback from team members. 

View the video below for the entire discussion. The following is a partial transcript.

Essentially what [dynamic tension] is, is creating an environment where you can basically stress test an idea of thought, a behavior. And so as a leader, what I encourage is to have dynamic tension with your team. [This means that] if I were to tell my team tomorrow, I need you to implement this. The dynamic tension piece would be my team either agreeing or trying to break the idea and finding fault.

Videos

During a dvm360® interview, Bridget Rollins, EMBA, defined dynamic tension, and how it can benefit veterinary teams. 

Incorporating dynamic tension at the practice

 71% of Fortune 500 companies have long-standing mentors and 97% of those with a mentor say they find them valuable. However, only 37% of current professionals have a mentor, creating an urgent need for more of these individuals.

At the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Veterinary Leadership Conference in Chicago, Kemba L. Marshall, MPH, DVM, DABVP (Avian), emphasized that if you decided you want to be a mentor, there is no better time than now. Consider the following questions she highlighted during her presentation to take the first steps in commencing your mentorship journey.

A mentor is defined as someone who is an experienced, trusted advisor with considerable knowledge and background in your desired field. They have accomplished the success you visualize for yourself and are eager to share their knowledge with you to help you reach your goals.

Marshall outlined what mentorship is versus what it isn’t to help establish clearer guidelines regarding the mentor role.

Engaging in working, professional relationships

Being willing to prompt self-reflection in themselves and in their mentees

Having a growth mindset and learning attitude

Engaging in a relationship one would have with their best friend

Using it as a method for replicating oneself

Approaching it as professional counseling

What knowledge and experiences are you willing to share?

It is simple for you to reveal strategies and ideas you implemented with ease. Though mentees can gain insight from this, according to Marshall, they get the most by learning from strategies, plans, and ideas in which you faced obstacles or you had to entirely remodel.

“When you’re talking to someone about things that you have done that you were very successful at and went very well, those are very easy shares. Everyone feels comfortable sharing the successes," Marshall remarked. "What can be challenging and often more informative is when we’re sharing the things that may be viewed as a shortcoming or failure."

As a mentor, you also want to ensure you know what you are comfortable with sharing before doing so, plus you have to feel safe with your mentee when being vulnerable and divulging tough lessons. The relationship should be built on trust, accountability, and transparency. Confidentiality of information should be determined early in the relationship as well.

What areas or fields will you provide mentorship in?

Though you have knowledge and background in veterinary medicine, you also have those outside of the industry, so decide in which realm you would like to offer mentorship. Some examples of groups within the profession to mentor that Marshall mentioned include pre-veterinary students, veterinarians, and veterinary technicians.

How and when will you provide mentorship?

Another way to ensure your mentorship relationship thrives is by setting a mutual meeting schedule with dates and times held on calendars. “Mentorships, like a lot of different relationships, can take on a lot of different forms and cadences and time periods. Those things are unique to the relationship and should be what the mentor and mentee agree to up front,” noted Marshall.

Additionally, you should decide from the start who is responsible for handling the process of setting calendar invites, checking if there is conflict, determining how long meetings will be, and more. Also, agendas and the topics discussed should be outlined before the meetings to ensure your time together is productive.

Marshall explained that through the mentor/mentee relationship experience, both parties grow and learn and gain insight from it. “In showing others a new perspective, mentors themselves find new perspectives,” she concluded.

Burns S. Why working with a mentor will take your business to the next level—and how to find one. 

. September 7, 2021. Accessed January 14, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2021/09/07/why-working-with-a-mentor-will-take-your-business-to-the-next-leveland-how-to-find-one/?sh=3b5203757b2a

Articles

In light of National Mentoring Month this January, these pointers can help you begin your path to mentorship. 

So, you want to become a mentor? 

In light of One Health Awareness Month this January, we are raising awareness of the connection between human, animal, and environmental health while remaining committed to offering you the latest (and greatest) news coverage in the veterinary industry. 

Here is a look at this week's highlights:

Oakland Zoo in California celebrated its 100th anniversary

 and its significant achievements throughout the years including its expansion, pivotal role in animal welfare, and more.

Antimicrobial stewardship is now securing its place in veterinary medicine after taking the human health world by storm. Check out more about it 

Sue Ettinger, DVM, DACVIM (Oncology), outlined differences to bear in mind when treating 

A Synchrony study revealed staggering findings regarding the 

 to offer pet parents a better understanding of financial expectations and raise awareness of available flexible payment solutions.

Kelly Cairns, DVM, DACVIM, MS, described the differences between 

feline neutrophilic and non-neutrophilic CCHS

, plus she shared effective treatment approaches.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 

 (Zoetis; Solensia), which is the first monoclonal antibody for animals to receive FDA approval. 

In an episode of The Vet Blast Podcast, Chewy Health vice president, Mita Malhotra, highlighted the 

Stay tuned on social media and dvm360.com for more veterinary news.

News wrap-up: This week's veterinary news, plus a new FDA approval

Whether you regularly use the subjective, objective, assessment, and plan (SOAP) method for medical records, or you haven’t used it since veterinary school, you are likely familiar with its structured approach to identifying problems, adding supporting data, reaching a diagnosis, and formulating a treatment plan. However, have you considered that the SOAP approach can help you effectively manage not only clinical problems but also business problems?

The SOAP format is easy to implement because veterinary professionals are familiar with its structure. The format is simple; it does not require advanced technology or software, and it can be maintained with a simple white board or word processing program. This simple approach allows you to focus on a single issue by identifying a pain point or bottleneck in your workflow—in other words, the root cause of a problem—and focusing on methods for improvement. This allows for cumulative improvements over time, instead of trying to “boil the ocean.”

Think this method can’t work for you? Think again. We have seen tremendous results when the SOAP method is applied to real-life situations. For example, there was a large Arizona practice with a low average per–client transaction, considering the practice type and client base. Using the SOAP method, we identified 2 significant opportunities. Although we targeted a 10% improvement rate, we actually realized a 14% improvement.

Begin by defining an opportunity to increase operational efficiency or a root-cause process that needs improvement. Opportunities to improve hospital operations might include the following:

Basically, any measurable need for improvement can present an opportunity. Focus on one opportunity at a time and ensure measurable results can be yielded in a 2- to 4-week period. An example might be: “Our customers often complain about the amount of time they spend waiting to be seen.”

You might also consider identifying team members who are responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed, according to the

so the process manager, and everyone who needs to be involved and informed of the process, outcomes, and changes, is clear.

Huddle with your entire team, ask for their ideas about opportunities for improvement, and develop an opportunity statement. Discuss what prevents them from delivering consistent results and apply their answers to the opportunity statement. A great tool for getting to the heart of the opportunity is asking “Why” 5 times. The 5 whys technique comes from lean methodology and, much like young kids, simply asks “Why” at least 5 times to uncover the root cause of a problem. For example:

 “Why do you think clients complain about waiting so long?”

“Because most appointments don’t start at their scheduled appointment time.”

 “Why aren’t clients being seen at their scheduled appointment time?”

 “Because the team usually isn’t ready when the client arrives.”

: “Why isn’t the team ready when the client arrives?”

 “We are usually still seeing other appointments when the next appointment arrives. We have to finish them before we can start a new appointment.”

 “Why aren’t we able to finish appointments on time and see the next appointment as scheduled?”

 “We always start the first appointments after lunch late because morning surgeries run late, and we have to stagger lunch. Most of the time, we get only a few minutes for lunch before having to see appointments.”


“Why do surgeries run into lunchtime?”

 “We usually have 5 surgeries scheduled in the morning, but we don’t start them until 9:30 am. We plan to start at 8:30 am, but we always run late.”

 “The doctor reviews blood work in the morning to prioritize the surgical cases for the day. We have to collect blood and run lab work before we can prioritize the cases. Once we have results, we prepare for the first case. This usually takes an hour to an hour and a half.”

In this scenario, we asked why clients were waiting to be seen, but we found that the root-cause problem was surgeries starting late in the morning, which led to runover that inhibited afternoon appointments starting on time.

To identify measurables that support your opportunity statement, consider things you see in hospital reports—while observing workflows—that prevent the team from improving the opportunity. You might look at metrics, compare data with industry standards or previous performance, and watch for signs that offer more clues or provide clarity to some of your subjective thoughts.

To continue our example above, you might look through reports and find that customer satisfaction scores are worse on surgery days. You might also look at appointment data and find that the time from appointment start to appointment finish increases as the day progresses. You may also see that the time between the scheduled appointment time and actual appointment start time increases over the course of the day. You observe appointments for 1 week, confirm your team’s subjective feedback, and gain additional insight through the data you uncovered.

Based on subjective team feedback and objective data review and observations, create a hypothesis—identify the problem and how you want to fix it.

In our scenario, you confirmed that surgeries run long and prevent the first appointments from starting on time. You also recognized that appointment start times become more delayed as the day progresses, and the team ends up staying late to get everything done. They are frustrated because they miss dinner at home, and the hospital is unhappy because the labor for the team to stay late costs a lot extra. Your assessment shows that the team’s original feedback is correct and that they uncovered outcomes in addition to customer frustration.

Determine a course of action you believe will best resolve the assessed problem. Test the solution, measure the outcomes, and either make the changes permanent or adjust and test again. Create a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goal to ensure you have clearly defined the change and measured the baseline before you make changes.

Which specific factor can you change to test the improved outcomes? Do not change several factors at once, because you won’t know which change is responsible for improved results or whether the results of one change canceled out the results of another.

You decide to have your veterinary technicians start an hour earlier in the morning so they can run the required surgical tests earlier. That way, they can prioritize the surgeries, and the veterinarian can confirm or rearrange the schedule when they arrive at the normal starting time. The technician team will prepare for the first surgery, and although they may sometimes need to adjust, most of the time, your team will be ready to start surgery at 8:30 am.

You must be able to measure potential improvements to recognize and share the results and put controls in place to monitor performance after making the change. Define the measurables you want to improve and record their current results.

Your clients are currently starting their appointments an average 20 minutes after their scheduled time. The first appointments after lunch typically start 15 minutes late, and the last appointments of the day start 30 minutes after their scheduled appointment time. Client net promoter score (NPS) is currently -0.2. By 2 weeks after the test starts, you would like every appointment to start no later than 10 minutes after the scheduled time. You also set a goal of improving client NPS to 0.15 over 1 month.

You want to choose a goal that can be measurably improved in 2 to 4 weeks. A short time frame will allow you to monitor small incremental changes that improve operations over time. However, avoid tackling big process changes with this approach.

You decide to institute the planned adjustments starting Monday, and you expect to see immediate results. You plan to monitor measurable results for 2 weeks to confirm they are permanent.

Ensure the plan aligns with the hospital’s goals and determine whether another goal is more important and should be tackled first.

Your hospital’s goals for the current year include improving customer satisfaction, and this goal aligns well with that overall mission.

Set a target time to achieve results. You should be able to estimate how long seeing results will take and test whether the plan is working. Schedule a time to review the goal and results with your team and add the date to your calendar for follow-up. If you meet the goal, celebrate the success with your team, and start the process over to identify the next opportunity for improvement.

You will institute changes Monday and monitor results daily. Your practice manager will interview clients as they leave for immediate, direct feedback that reflects improvement in NPS. You will continue for at least 2 weeks before you declare success or adjust the plan.

Using the SOAP approach is empowering, motivating, and engaging for veterinary teams. Involving your entire team in the problem-solving process helps ensure people are on board for change and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Team members will appreciate being heard, being part of identifying the problem, and seeing their contribution to the solution. Good luck, and enjoy all the incremental improvements you will see over the course of the year.

Emmitt Nantz has been part of the veterinary family for nearly 2 decades and is driven by a personal mission to make the veterinary domain better. Emmitt spent 12 years working at Banfield Pet Hospital, starting out as a single-site hospital manager. Having majored in agriculture management and business, he expanded his education to include an MBA, a Black Belt in Six Sigma, and a Project Management Certification. Emmitt applied these learnings by creating large-scale operational improvements for the entire Banfield network, with a focus on improving employee and client satisfaction. He is now the chief operating officer at Galaxy Vets, a veterinary health care system co-owned by its employees.

Learn how the SOAP method can be applied to help resolve business-related problems at the clinic. 

Wash away your practice management troubles with SOAP

Five finalists are vying to win a business pitch competition hosted by the North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) during the Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX) in Orlando, Florida. They include a mentorship and professional development program, a cloud solution for practice management, an automated blood counting tool, an inventory management solution, and a holistic parasite prevention solution.

The competitors will present their pitches live at the meeting as part of the fifth annual, shark-tank style VMX Pet Pitch Competition. The VMX Pet Pitch Competition will take place on the exposition floor, in the VMX Central Learning Theater Booth 2326, on Sunday, January 16, at 4:45 pm. The competition will be live-streamed and available afterward on the VMX Virtual Expo platform.

“The NAVC is committed to supporting these startup companies and help raise visibility for exciting new products that will help veterinary professionals deliver even better health care to our animals,” said NAVC CEO, Gene O’Neill, in an organization press release. “The VMX Pet Pitch Competition and VMX Startup Circle gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to bring their innovative ideas to life, network with global leaders in animal healthcare and receive mentorship and critical feedback to help accelerate their ideas into a thriving business.”

The 5 finalists in the VMX Pet Pitch Competition are as follows:

is an evidence-based mentorship and professional development program for early-career veterinarians. MentorVet provides holistic support to veterinarians through a combination of mentorship, mental health and financial coaching, and online training in professional skills to promote wellbeing in the transition to practice.

is a cloud solution that uses the latest technologies in software development to offer veterinary hospitals phone, texting, practice management solution (PMS), customer portal, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, marketing tools, website tools and more, all in one software package/system.

has automated the process of counting and recognizing different types of cells using computer vision instead of flow cytometry. It is the first application of Artificial Intelligence and imaging used to automate complete blood count (CBC) tests. This new technology enables not only in-depth analysis of routine CBCs, but also the automated detection of hemopathologic disease that would otherwise go undiscovered via standard automated CBC methodologies.

 addresses inventory management, an underserved and overlooked, but crucial function within the veterinary field. VetSnap is an integrated, automated inventory management solution that is agnostic to Product Information Managers (PIMs) and works with multiple distributors/manufacturers to streamline the inventory management process for veterinary hospitals.

 is a holistic preventative care solution for pets. Subscribers receive a quarterly preventative health kit with heartworm, flea, and tick preventatives, as well as high caliber diagnostics and supplies shipped to their door. Additionally, pet parent members have 24/7 access to chat with a vet professional which allows Vetted to proactively engage members on appropriate use of health kit tools.

The VMX Pet Pitch Competition and Startup Circle give new companies the opportunity to introduce their products, services, and solutions to thousands of veterinary professionals and practice decision makers, according to NAVC. The competition entries are designed to enable veterinary professionals to operate more efficiently and deliver better health care solutions to clients and pets.

The finalists were selected from a competitive pool of more than 35 startup companies that will exhibit their products in the VMX Startup Circle at the conference. A winner will be chosen by a panel of judges that includes Harold Davis, BA, RVT, VTS (ECC), president-elect of the NAVC Board of Directors.

The winner of this year’s VMX Pet Pitch Competition will receive a complimentary exhibitor booth at the upcoming Veterinary Innovation Summit in Kansas City, Missouri, and an invitation to attend Purina’s PetCare Innovation Network’s annual Innovation Summit—an invitation only event held at Nestle-Purina headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, according to NAVC.

NAVC announces VMX 2022 Pet Pitch competition finalists. News release. North American Veterinary Community. January 12, 2022.

Five startup businesses will present their pitches live

NAVC reveals VMX Pet Pitch Competition finalists 

declared: “Data is the fuel of the new economy, and even more so of the economy to come.”

 Just 3 years later and the rapidly accelerating success of companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft make that commentary feel vastly understated. However, data as an economic driver is not solely the domain of tech giants. Presenting at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Veterinary Leadership Conference in Chicago, Bridget Bain, PhD, and Rosemary Radich, MA, made the case for veterinary practices to embrace the use data.

It’s no secret how companies like Google monetize data. All of its services—from Gmail to Google search, Android phones, smart watches, and beyond—are constantly harvesting data that is then used to sell highly targeted advertising.

How does this translate into veterinary practices? Bain believes it comes down to using data to provide better service to clients and patients. 

“The more data that we collect, we are able to make the lives of those we serve more convenient, and we also improve their lives greatly,” said Bain. “As a non-data person, you may think data just involves how many clients you have or…the average transaction cost, but data is so much more than that.”

One example highlighted by the presenters was using data to segment the practice’s customers. This means dividing customers into different groups, which are then communicated with and marketed to in a way that reflects their values. In other words, treating people the way they want to be treated translates to happier clients and better revenue. This can be achieved by harnessing the data that should already be kept within a hospital’s practice information management system (PIMS).

Radich stressed that understanding pet ownership is critical for practices’ success, adding, “We’ve come up with all different types of messaging that we’ve tested out to provide specifically to our members and to practice owners so that they and their staff can really know what’s the best messaging that they can use to increase engagement.”

In their research, Radich and Bain identified 5 segments of pet owners and the ideal strategy for satisfying their needs for communication within the practice: pampered pets, enthusiastic families, casual caretakers, low-key and child-free, and occupied owners.

Pampered pet owners are the type who are likely to dress their pets in outfits and celebrate their birthdays on social media. These owners are willing to pay for the best service, and communication should emphasize personalized recommendations for the pet.

Enthusiastic families tend to value quality and convenience but are most concerned with overall value. Communication should emphasize compassionate and tailored care, according to the presenters.

Casual caretakers, who tend to be younger married couples with middle class income and kids, are looking for knowledgeable staff at a cost-effective price. Communication with these pet owners should focus on the clinic’s highly trained staff while working with the client to find the right payment option.

Low-key and child-free clients are likely to be aged 55 years and older with no kids. These pet parents are looking for quality and price. Communication compassion, understanding, and that the clinician is willing to spend time with these patients is paramount.

The final category is occupied owners who tend to make under $50,000. The best communication to this segment requires emphasizing staff knowledge and the loving environment the clinic will provide, while offering highly convenient service options.

The presenters found in their research that this simple act of segmenting patients can lead to better outcomes and better revenue. “Take an assessment of what data you have,” said Radich. “Do you have a practice management system? What data are you collecting from your clients?

Taking it a step further, Radich said that practices that simply have a PIMS are more likely to see increased revenue. Additionally, practices with the highest revenue increases also had highest PIMS usage, according to their research.

Segmenting clients is a simple action clinicians can take with the data they likely already have. With the data revolution already underway, it’s only a matter of time before more and more veterinary practices catch on to the value they’re leaving on the table. 

“People are leveraging data for success,” said Radich. “You don’t want to get left behind.”

Chakravorti B, Bhalla A, Chaturvedi, RS. Which countries are leading the data economy? Harvard Business Review. January 24, 2019. Accessed January 13, 2022. 

https://hbr.org/2019/01/which-countries-are-leading-the-data-economy

Bain B, Radich R. The Power of Data: How Leaders Can Improve Lives Through Analysis and Insights. Presented at: AVMA Veterinary Leadership Conference; January 6-9, 2022

Two data scientists demonstrate how veterinary practices can take simple steps to better serve their communities and make more money in the process.