We all know that the veterinary hospital is a hoppin’ place! Even with the most organized systems in place, it can be challenging to keep everyone on the team “in the know” about the patients receiving care in the hospital – especially between the front and back, and during shift changes. Hippo Manager’s latest Whiteboard and Treatment Sheet features (which are included in your monthly subscription price) are here to make your life easier! Here are 5 ways these features can help you:
Chris HenningChris Henning’s specialties including wellness plan implementation, change management, professional development, and customer service. She believes in providing the highest level of medical care to pets and clients, while developing teams to perform at their highest potential. Chris is passionate about helping other veterinary leaders expand their own leadership skills to increase their own team engagement and financial success.
1. Enhance Communication Amongst the Team
No more running from the front to the back or waiting for a team member to exit a room to check on a patient’s status – either when the owner calls to check up on Fluffy or when they arrive for pick up. Hippo Manager’s Whiteboard clearly displays the status of each patient: where they are in the hospital, where they are in their treatment, and when they are ready to be picked up.
Tired of always getting off your shift late because you have to transfer patients off to the next person? Easily schedule and track patients’ care and therapies on the Treatment Sheet feature so staff changes can transition more smoothly. The incoming team member can see everything that still needs to be done and when the next item needs completed.
2. Increase Efficiency
Pre-load items and services into common visit types in the scheduler so they automatically generate a treatment sheet, chart note AND an invoice for those appointment types that you ALWAYS do the same steps. Take an ear infection for example. You can set the Ear Appointment to always add your office visit, ear swab, and ear cleaning to the invoice as soon as the pet is checked in. You can also have it automatically start your SOAP note to go with it and pre-fill in the presenting complaint, and it will update your inventory as items are used.
3. Document Services – Complete or Declined
When you use the Treatment Sheet feature, you’ll be able to order up items and services the pet needs that day AND either mark them as completed OR remove them as “client declines” or as another reason. These selections will automatically stamp in your chart note.
4. Display the Whiteboard on a Big Screen
You can have the Whiteboard always on display in your hospital. There are a variety of ways you may wish to do this: on a mounted TV in the treatment area for all staff to easily see as they are working (in the kennel/boarding area to keep track of feeding/medication schedules, at the front desk to easily monitor traffic and identify potential bottlenecks. Think about who needs this information and where is the best place to make it visible at all times on an extra screen.
Tech Tip: There are a variety of options to get a display on a larger screen. You can use an HDMI cord to connect a laptop or tablet to a TV mounted to a wall. You can cast your screen using Google Products with a Chromecast to display the whiteboard from your smartphone or pc in real time. Apple TV offers the airplay feature to “mirror” from your Mac or IOS device (like an iPad or iPhone). Most Smart TV’s include a casting function already built into it. If you want to start with a simple solution, you can invest in an additional monitor for your reception area, or train your staff to keep an extra tab open on their computer to check it from different workstations.
5. Decrease Bottlenecks at Busy Check Out Times
Devise a “code” that lets your front desk staff know when patients are ready to be checked out, or when they need to speak with the doctor or approve additional items…and then use the statuses in the Whiteboard to convey that. In my hospitals, we assigned pets a status of “Awaiting Pickup” to let the front desk team know there was still something we needed to talk to the owner about before they received payment and checked the pet out. A status of “Ready for Check Out” meant the owner has already talked with the Veterinarian, the invoice was accurate, the front desk could check the pet out and the pet could leave. This greatly reduced bottlenecks and chaos at the front desk in the evenings because the receptionists knew exactly what to do with each client that walked up to their desk to get their pet. Having this “code” in place greatly improved our client service and decreased wait times for pick-ups…which ultimately led to a greater chance of all staff getting out of work on time. Who wouldn’t want all those things?!?
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