The coronavirus pandemic has already wreaked havoc on the global economy. But while equine veterinary practices have certainly been affected, there may be a silver lining in the situation, especially for those utilizing telehealth and remote monitoring solutions. In an article by Mike Pownall, DVM MBA on Veterinary Business Matters, he emphasized that the way vets support their clients in a crisis helps to create loyalty and trust that will continue to serve them and their patients in the future. As Piavita’s remote health monitoring solution is designed to alleviate veterinarians of some of the most repetitive, manual processes in their practice, we’d like to highlight how to best leverage the Piavet System in this challenging time.
Telehealth & Remote Monitoring In Crisis Mode
While remote healthcare services are beneficial at any time and are a growing trend in veterinary practices, telemedicine solutions are especially useful right now. Avoiding direct contact with clients and keeping a physical distance from colleagues while continuing to collaborate on cases is essential to helping prevent the spread of COVID-19. According to the AVMA’s dedicated COVID-19 resource page, “the use of telemedicine has become an important way to protect and monitor the health of veterinary patients and veterinary teams.” We’ve talked about telehealth in equine medicine before, but not in the context of a pandemic. Telehealth is simply defined as the use of technology that’s designed to remotely deliver health information or education.
The Piavet System is specifically designed to give equine veterinarians more visibility into patient health, a safer environment for staff and less intrusive experience for horses, and objective data for the basis of diagnosis and treatment planning. The capabilities of our remote health monitoring solution can be used in a number of ways to reduce stress and challenges relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collaborate with off-site colleagues
The Piavet Platform allows you and your staff to keep track of patient records, take notes, analyze recordings, and see a timeline of activity. All this information is available remotely at any time so you can continue to collaborate with colleagues and staff over even the most critical cases, no matter where you’re working from.
Share and analyze recordings from home
In addition, if you have children who are currently home full time due to nation-wide school closures, you’re probably not finding a lot of time to get to the clinic. The office work of poring over data and recordings to determine your diagnosis and plan treatments can now happen at your dining table. The ‘share a recording’ feature enables you to send or receive ECG or other vital sign recordings, enabling you to consult on cases with anyone in your network.
Consult with experts online
Our DiploVets integration lets you send recordings or reports to an expert directly from the Piavet Platform so you can rely less on a fully staffed clinic to keep patient care at your highest standards.
Reduce trips to the clinic
Horse owners can find a bit of peace knowing that you are equipped to continue monitoring their horses outside the clinic so they don’t have to travel more than necessary. If horses can’t be transported to a clinic due to the coronavirus, you could opt to set the owner up for remote monitoring from their home barn. If your clients have limited access to their horses due to barn closures or restrictions, long-term monitoring can also relive owners of significant stress knowing that you’re able to check in on their horse when they cannot.
Conserve medical supplies
Another benefit of remote monitoring is the fact that you simply need to use fewer supplies in the day to get the same job done. Things like gloves, masks, and aprons that are used for each manual check are often disposed of in between, especially if you or your staff must tend to multiple horses or visit patients in isolation. The Piavet System allows you to check thing like heart rate and temperature without going near the horse. As Chinese supply chains have been massively disrupted, it’s more important than ever to use supplies wisely. This also goes for disinfectants, which are a hot commodity at the moment.
In this strange and unnerving time, which has birthed terms like ‘social distancing’ and ‘shelter-in-place’, veterinarians must not only consider their personal safety, but how to continue caring for their patients and staff. Although it remains unclear if authorities will allow veterinary businesses to stay in operation, the AVMA is fighting for the cause. On March 17, the association released a letter urging lawmakers and state executives to protect and preserve public health by ensuring that veterinary practices be deemed “essential businesses.” For the most up-to-date information, visit the COVID-19 resource pages from the AVMA and AAEP.
At Piavita, we like happy vets and healthy horses. It’s that simple. Our mission it to transform veterinary care by providing remote health monitoring technology to the veterinary industry. With a non-invasive, sensor-enabled hardware device and sophisticated software platform, the Piavet Solution automates and digitizes repetitive, manual tasks to help vets save time and improve patient outcomes. We are a diverse group of engineers, developers, researchers, and horse people with a passion for delivering meaningful solutions to veterinarians. We operate out of offices in Zürich, Berlin, and North Carolina. Have a question or suggestion? We’d love to hear from you.
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