“We are at a critical juncture with veterinary virtual care,” says Jessica Vogelsang, DVM and member of the Veterinary Virtual Care Association’s founding board.
Many veterinary professionals are seeing this reality in daily practice as a worldwide pandemic limits face-to-face connection and many clients look for technology driven convenience.
“While coronavirus pushed us into fast-forward, we’re now at the point where we have to decide whether or not these new technologies are going to be part of the long-term plan and how they fit into a workflow,” she says.
And that’s a major reason why the VVCA is hosting the first Veterinary Virtual Care Summit, a free digital event that aims to equip any member of a veterinary care team to better serve their clients through telehealth.
The summit is scheduled to launch August 18 and offer up to 5.5 hours of CE content. Outside of the education content, the single-day event will also include opportunities for networking and experiential growth. To register, visit virtualcaresummit.vet.
Additionally, Vogelsang says this summit will be especially useful for veterinary nurses looking to expand their professional toolkit.
“One of our major goals for the summit is to empower veterinary nurses to go back to their clinics as the virtual care champion, the person who can really be the driver of virtual care in their place of work,” she says. “There’s no reason a doctor has to be the one leading the way if a nurse has the interest and drive. From triage to follow ups to in-depth client education, veterinary nurses play a critical role in those client interactions that build trust and improve patient outcomes—and those are the very interactions best suited for telehealth technologies.”
Topics to be addressed include regulations (including the VCPR), the economics of virtual care, staff workflows, customer experience, and more.
“While the entire summit is designed to be enjoyed and utilized by any member of the veterinary care team, we have 2 sessions specifically geared toward veterinary nurses,” says Vogelsang. “We have one panel consisting entirely of nurses/technicians from different types of practice who will discuss how they use virtual care in their daily lives in the clinic, as independent entrepreneurs, and in teaching.
“We also have a workflow panel where doctors, nurses, customer service representatives, and practice managers can all see how they contribute to the cycle of service using virtual care. So much of the current conversation surrounding veterinary virtual care focuses on the relatively small piece of the pie that is telemedicine —the specific usage involving diagnosis and prescribing—that we often neglect the enormous role nurses play in communication and client education, which is one of the biggest applications of virtual care.”
With telehealth and telemedicine becoming more effective through expanding technology—and sought after by clients—the Veterinary Virtual Care Summit can help improve the standard and efficiency of care at your practice. To register, visit virtualcaresummit.vet.