Care pairs even out the workload

One challenge of team management: Making sure everyone pulls his or her weight. "We found that our veterinary assistants and technicians like to congregate in certain areas of the hospital, and when someone needed help in another area, they'd kind of look at each other to see who would go," says Jean Weaver, hospital administrator at Catawba Animal Clinic, located in Rock Hill, S.C.—a seven-doctor practice with 33 support staff members. "It always seemed that certain team members worked harder than others."

Two changes helped to solve the problem, Weaver says. First, the hospital assigned one assistant to work on a permanent basis with each doctor. "With this approach, each team member works his or her doctor's schedule and gets to know the veterinarian's patients, which builds stronger client relationships," Weaver says. "They also call the next day's scheduled appointments, which helps minimize our no-show appointments, and they handle client questions and scheduling concerns."

The second change: Every day the management team assigns and posts positions for the treatment and surgery technicians. "This system lets doctors know who's in charge of helping with their patients' care," Weaver says. "The position assignment changes every day so every team member fills every role—which ends comments like 'So and so never works as hard as I do.'"