PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – On Tuesday and Wednesday, leaders in the veterinary industry gathered in Portland to discuss solutions for some of the biggest issues facing animal healthcare.
Portland hosted the Veterinary Innovation Summit where veterinarians attended a CEO-led panel and informational sessions about the future landscape of caring for animals. They talked about key issues like how to provide more people access to veterinary care and how to meet increasing demands.
Dr. Douglas Aspros, chair of the Veterinary Innovation Council, attended the sixth-annual event and said many participants agreed this was the best summit yet.
“We’re the best doctors we’ve ever been… and yet we’re pretty stressed to the max in terms of being able to actually meet that demand,” Aspros said. “So, the purpose of that innovation summit is to continue to drive forward and come up with better ways, newer ways to meet that demand, do a better job.”
He said the Veterinary Innovation Council, which puts on the event, tries to push the envelope when it comes to new ways to provide animal care.
Creating more accessible care
A huge topic of conversation at the event was how to make veterinary care more accessible.
Oftentimes, cost stands in the way of many pets receiving veterinary care. Veterinarians are taught to give every patient what Aspros calls “the gold standard” of care. But now, veterinarians are beginning to consider a spectrum of services that would give patients treatment options that, although they might not be the best, would still provide some sort of care.
“Better care is only better when compared to other care. It’s not better compared to no care,” Aspros said.
He’s seen many instances where if pet owners can’t afford the treatment plan offered to them, they choose to do nothing at all.
With a spectrum of care, if a dog were to injure its knee in a way that typically requires major surgery, but the owner can’t afford it, veterinarians would be able to instead offer them more affordable treatments such as a more minor surgery, physical therapy, or anti-inflammatory drugs.
These alternative treatments might mean a dog lives with a limp and isn’t as active as it once was, but Aspros said it could still be mobile and live a fulfilling life.
Cost isn’t the only thing making veterinary care hard to access. Aspros said veterinarians are also starting to look at how they can better service veterinary deserts — places where the closest veterinarian is sometimes hundreds of miles away, or where there aren’t enough veterinarians per the number of pets in an area.
There are also people who don’t drive or who have mobility disabilities that limit how they can get their pets to and from the vet clinic.
While they may not have all the solutions now, these are things veterinarians are putting their heads together on to try and come up with a solution.
The growing demand for veterinarians
One thing that’s stretching veterinary care thin, even in metropolitan areas, is the increased demand.
Aspros said the way people treat and care about their pets in recent years has changed, especially during the pandemic.
“The days of animals living outdoors, whether it’s cats or dogs I mean, like dogs don’t live in dog houses anymore. They live in our house. They sleep in our beds. They watch TV on the couch with us. They go on airplanes with us,” he said.
This closer relationship has led to people observing their pets more closely and better understanding their needs. During the COVID-19 shutdowns, many people spent day after day in their homes with their animals and were keenly aware of how they were feeling and if they needed to see a veterinarian.
Demand is also increasing due to Americans’ lifestyle changes, Aspros said. People are having children at a later age and filling their young adult years with pets instead of babies.
Could a new veterinary position help?
To help meet the growing demand, veterinarian and CEO of the Dumb Friends League Dr. Apryl Steele is pushing for the creation of a position in veterinary medicine that would function much like a physician’s associate or nurse practitioner in human medicine.
She calls it the veterinary practical associate and discussed the idea with other professionals at the summit in Portland.
The role of a veterinary practical associate would depend on the veterinarian supervising them, but Steele said they could likely assist with a variety of things such as routine appointments, wellness exams, ear infections, dentistry or spay and neuter surgeries.
With their help, they might take some of the workload off veterinarians and allow patients to book appointments sooner.
“Veterinarians are working so hard trying to meet these demands of the public and the pets that they’re there to serve and they’re burning out,” Steele said. “We have to do something.”
Right now, veterinarians are required to have doctoral degrees while veterinary technicians are only required to have an associate’s degree. There aren’t other positions that require a level of degree somewhere in the middle.
What’s standing in the way of creating programs to educate veterinary practical associates are state veterinary practice acts, which in most states require someone to have a doctoral degree to practice veterinary medicine.
Steele said lobbyists in several states have been pushing to change these laws and some schools are already beginning to offer programs that would educate people in mid-level veterinary care, with the expectation that the laws will soon change.
Lincoln Memorial University started its first program this fall and Colorado State University has started the approval process for its own program.
Steele, who works in Colorado, said she and others working to adjust the law almost convinced lawmakers to change it in 2021 and she feels optimistic they might succeed in the next session.
“The shelters are just filling up because these animals are waiting and waiting for surgeries because of the veterinary shortage and that’s somewhere where these graduates could be deployed immediately,” she said.
Other things discussed at the summit include ways veterinarians can serve patients better using technology. Steele said they’re talking more about how they can use things like telemedicine to reach patients who might have a difficult time traveling to a veterinary clinic.
They’re also discussing using artificial intelligence to read radiology images.
While the professionals at the summit don’t always agree with one another, Steele said she felt they were more unified on some topics in 2022 than they have been in previous years.
“This was the first time, it was a real paradigm shift, the first time I ever have heard a room unite around [the idea that] everybody should be able to own animals and we have to create care for all of these animals,” she said.
Steele said she’s walking away from the conference feeling like she isn’t wasting her time in advocating for the veterinary practical associate position.
She also said the final keynote speaker Wednesday said something that stuck with her. She talked about how much more difficult it is to unlearn things and how easy it is to learn.
“We’re constantly learning and trying new things, but we don’t spend thoughtful time unlearning what’s not working or what has changed and is no longer relevant. So I’m gonna take that away,” she said.