Implementation of PetGENUS at Animal Health Partners

Animal Health Partners (AHP) is a network of 24-hour veterinary emergency and specialty hospitals that unites ideas from human medicine and veterinary specialists to provide innovative, evidence-based, patient-centred care to companion animals. Its specialty services include neurology, cardiology, surgery, internal medicine, oncology, and critical care.

By implementing PetGENUS at its Scarsdale location, AHP was able to:

Reduce its consult time and improve pet prioritization for ER patients;
Reduce the time required to round patients for specialists; and
Improve its workflow by better tracking in-patients.

Reducing Consult Times in the Emergency Room

The Emergency Room (ER) at the Scarsdale location of AHP receives between 20-40 patients per day. In such a busy environment, tools that reduce time and provide decision support can translate into lives saved.

When AHP started using the Check-in tool to pre-screen patients coming through the ER, clinicians saw an immediate reduction in consult time.

“The Check-in tool saves me from having to ask routine questions about medical history and habits and instead focus on the important issues patients are there for,” says Dr. Laura Tindal, Emergency Veterinarian at AHP.

In addition, using the PetGENUS Triage Assistant, AHP was able to better prioritize pets before they arrived at its Emergency Room, including preparing for STAT cases in advance so that the patient gets the urgent care they need as soon as they arrive in hospital.

Dr. Tindal was also part of the team that first tested the Smart Documentation module in the clinic to streamline medical documentation.

“When documenting a case and inputting treatments and procedure information, there are so many places where we have to repeat the same information 2 or 3 times. PetGENUS helps automate parts of this process and allows me to spend more time with patients,” comments Dr. Tindal. “In addition, the decision-support features help newer clinicians come up with differential diagnoses for patients with unfamiliar symptoms and reminds them of the best next steps in diagnostics.”

Overall, Dr. Tindal estimates that using Pet Genus helps save about 10 minutes per consult, which adds up quickly during a busy shift.

A better way to round patients

When patients require stays in hospital overnight or longer, the vet responsible must hand the patient off to the next clinician on shift. Traditionally, this process, called rounding, is done with the two clinicians needing to meet face to face, often using paper or other manual means to record the information.

The PetGENUS Rounds tool digitizes and improves this process with a user-friendly interface that clinicians can use to record all the information the next clinician will need to care for the pet.

“The Rounds tool made an immediate impact,” says Dr. Tindal. “It takes minutes to fill out and only includes the information we need to make the right decisions for the care of our patients in hospital.”

Tracking hospitalized patients for better capacity management

In a large hospital such as AHP, having the proper tools to track patients across the hospital is essential to manage capacity and keep pet parents informed. The PetGENUS Whiteboard keeps hospital staff informed of a patient’s status and location.

“When pet parents are calling to get a status update on their hospitalized pet, the Whiteboard is a major help in immediately locating where that pet is and who is currently caring for it,” says Deborah Burke, Customer Service Representative (CSR) at AHP.

The Whiteboard also enables practice managers to track in real time how many runs and kennels are available in each hospital ward and in the ICU, including upcoming patients being discharged.

“We often get calls for transfers from other hospitals that require critical care,” says Dr. Tindal. “Especially when it comes to large dogs, there are a limited number of runs in ICU that can accommodate them, so having the information about upcoming discharges helps us determine whether we can accept that patient or not.”

Final Word

Animal Health Partners prides itself on using innovative solutions to provide better patient care, and it plans to implement PetGENUS when it opens its second location in Q4 2022.