{"id":7825,"date":"2020-04-27T18:36:22","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T18:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/?p=7825"},"modified":"2022-06-15T17:46:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T17:46:13","slug":"veterinary-virtual-care-association-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navc.sitepreview.app\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/veterinary-virtual-care-association-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocacy Group Sees a Bright Future for Remote Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Veterinary Virtual Care Association wants to do for veterinary medicine what the 27-year-old American Telemedicine Association has accomplished in human medicine. That is, as the ATA says, \u201cchange the way the world thinks about health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newly established veterinary organization aims to make virtual care \u2014 a term encompassing telemedicine, teletriage and everything else that veterinary professionals do or might do remotely \u2014 as common as an in-clinic wellness visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn five years, the vast, vast majority of practitioners will utilize telemedicine and broaden virtual care beyond what you do with a smartphone,\u201d said Mark Cushing, JD, a founding member of the Veterinary Virtual Care Association (VVCA). \u201cI think you\u2019re going to see the states, one by one, remove barriers to doing it, realizing it\u2019s safe, effective and proven. That\u2019s what happened in human medicine. I don\u2019t see any reason why the same path won\u2019t be taken in veterinary medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regulated by state boards and constrained by rules governing the veterinarian-client-patient relationship, veterinary virtual care has grown by baby steps as the human variety evolved into a giant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect to work with organizations like the AAVSB<\/a> (Association of American Veterinary State Boards) and the Veterinary Innovation Council<\/a>,\u201d Cushing said. \u201cBoth have promoted veterinary versions of the human telemedicine rules, which have made it much easier for doctors to engage with clients through digital tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary purpose of VVCA is sharing best practices and creating standards and policies to guide how you do telemedicine, how you do it effectively, what works best for consumers and what works best for veterinary teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s leadership is made up of Cushing, the founder and CEO of the Animal Policy Group, and 10 other industry veterans:<\/p>\n